Commentaryhttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary
Sun, 15 Sep 2019 10:57:57 +0000CFIF CMSen-gbIs England Still Part of Europe?http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4664-is-england-still-part-of-europe
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4664-is-england-still-part-of-europeBritish Prime Minister Boris Johnson is desperate to translate the British public's June 2016 vote to leave the European Union into a concrete Brexit.

But the real issue is far older and more important than whether 52 percent of Britain finally became understandably aggrieved by the increasingly anti-democratic and German-controlled European Union.

England is an island. Historically, politically and linguistically, it was never permanently or fully integrated into European culture and traditions.

The story of Britain has mostly been about conflict with France, Germany or Spain. The preeminence of the Royal Navy, in the defiant spirit of its sea lords, ensured that European dictators from Napoleon to Hitler could never set foot on British soil. As British admiral John Jervis reassured his superiors in 1801 amidst rumors of an impending Napoleonic invasion, "I do not say, my lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea."

Britain's sea power, imperialism, parliamentary government and majority Protestant religion set it apart from its European neighbors – and not just because of its geographical isolation.

The 18th century British and Scottish Enlightenment of Edmund Burke, David Hume, John Locke and Adam Smith emphasized individualism, freedom and liberty far more than the government-enforced equality of result that was favored by French Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is no accident that the American Revolution was founded on the idea of individual freedom and liberty, unlike the later French Revolution's violent effort to redistribute income and deprive "enemies of the people" of their rights and even their lives.

France produced Napoleon, Italy had Mussolini, and Germany gave the world Hitler. It is difficult to find in British history a comparable dictatorial figure who sought Continental domination. The British, of course, were often no saints. They controlled their global empire by both persuasion and brutal force.

But even British imperialism was of a different sort than Belgian, French, German, Portuguese or Spanish colonialism. Former British colonies America, Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand have long been democratic, while much of Latin America, to take one example, has not until recently.

In World War I, the British lost nearly 1 million soldiers trying to save France and Belgium. In World War II, England was the only nation to fight the Axis for the entirety of the war (from September 1939, to September 1945), the only Allied power to fight the Axis completely alone (for about a year from mid-1940 to mid-1941), and the only major Allied power to have gone to war without having been directly attacked. (It came to the aid of its ally Poland.)

Historically, Britain has looked more upon the seas and the New World than eastward to Europe. In that transatlantic sense, a Canadian or American typically had more in common with an Englander than did a German or Greek.

Over the last 30 years, the British nearly forgot that fact as they merged into the European Union and pledged to adopt European values in a shared trajectory to supposed utopia.

To the degree that England remained somewhat suspicious of EU continentalism by rejecting the euro and not embracing European socialism, the country thrived. But when Britain followed the German example of open borders, reversed the market reforms of Margaret Thatcher, and adopted the pacifism and energy fantasies of the EU, it stagnated.

Johnson's efforts as the new prime minister ostensibly are to carry out the will of the British people as voiced in 2016, against the wishes of the European Union apparat and most of the British establishment. But after hundreds of years of rugged independence, will Britain finally merge into Europe, or will it retain its singular culture and grow closer to the English-speaking countries it once founded – which are doing better than most of the members of the increasingly regulated and anti-democratic European Union.

Europe is alarmingly unarmed. Most NATO members refuse to make their promised investments in defense. Negative interest rates are becoming normal in Europe. Unemployment remains high in tightly regulated labor markets.

Southern European countries can never fully repay their loans from German banks. The dissident Visegrad Group, comprised of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, seeks to create a mini-alliance inside the EU that promotes secure borders, legal immigration only, nuclear power, and traditional values and Christianity.

Britain has a last chance to re-embrace the free-market democratic world that it once helped to create – and distance itself from the creeping statism it once opposed.

]]>mark.donahoohatchell+vdhanson@gmail.com (Victor Davis Hanson)State of AffairsThu, 12 Sep 2019 05:49:18 +0000Socialized Medicine Proposals Upset Labor Union Apple Carthttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/56-health-care/4661-socialized-medicine-proposals-upset-labor-union-apple-cart
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/56-health-care/4661-socialized-medicine-proposals-upset-labor-union-apple-cartMichael Barone, the dean of American politics, has often observed that the omnipresent challenge facing the Democratic party throughout its long history has been the task of proverbially herding cats.

That is, Democrats have always been a tenuous amalgam of disparate and sometimes conflicting splinter groups and special interests. As Barone notes, that inherent tension often generates conflict:

[T]he Republican Party is the party of people who are considered, by themselves and by others, as “normal Americans” – Northern white Protestants in the 19th century, married white Christians more recently – while the Democratic Party is the party of the “out groups” who are in some sense seen, by themselves and by others, as not “normal” – white Southerners and Catholic immigrants in the 19th century, blacks and white seculars more recently. Thus, it’s natural for the Democrats to be more fissiparous.

Today’s most conspicuous division centers upon the healthcare issue vis-à-vis one of the political left’s most important constituencies: labor unions.

That’s because at various times, and depending upon the audience they’re attempting to placate, the 2020 Democratic candidates have advocated varying methods of increasing government control of Americans’ healthcare, including a complete takeover and elimination of private forms of insurance. As if government control of such things as public schools and the Post Office has proven so successful.

Nevertheless, the reason those proposals run counter to labor unions’ interests is that unions sell themselves as effective bargainers for employee medical benefits from employers. Remove that issue from the collective bargaining equation, and unions’ raison d’etre narrows, as expressed by International Association of Fire Fighters president Harold Schaitberger:

We’ve spent a lot of time and effort developing plans that recognize the uniqueness of our members’ profession, the health consequences and exposures related to our work, including behavioral health issues like PTSD, drug addiction and alcohol abuse. We question whether a government-wide, government-run plan for everyone would ever be able to recognize those unique circumstances.

To his credit, former 2020 Democratic candidate and Congressman Tim Ryan (D – Ohio) attempted to introduce an element of reason during the Democratic candidates’ debate, before he realized he’s far too moderate to remain in contention and dropped out of the race:

This plan being offered by Senator Warren and Senator Sanders will tell those union members who gave away wages in order to get good healthcare that they’re going to lose their healthcare because Washington’s going to come in and tell them they got a better plan.

Tough luck, apparently.

And not just for the working class and labor union members, either. Approximately 80% of the American public regularly reports that they’re happy with their existing healthcare. But that’s of little import against the political left’s insatiable hunger for more control over our lives and economy.

Exacerbating matters this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D – California) own effort to deepen government control over Americans’ healthcare came to light.

Bloomberg Law released a memorandum leaking central components of Speaker Pelosi’s proposed pharmaceutical bill, and the substance bends even further left than anticipated. Following Bernie Sanders’ lead, the proposal would impose the most extreme price control laws ever imposed in the United States. The bill would also import foreign nations’ price control schemes to America, which would in turn mean that we’d ultimately suffer the same deficit of new lifesaving drugs that other nations now suffer in comparison to the U.S.

Leftist efforts to impose greater government control over Americans’ healthcare despite public opposition is nothing new. What’s more novel today is that they’re willing to throw one of their most reliable constituencies – labor unions and their rank-and-file members – under the bus to achieve their ends.

Margaret Thatcher famously observed that, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Well, labor unions and their members are beginning to realize that the “other people’s money” upon which today’s socialized medicine proposals rely may be their own.

On Friday, Pope Francis blamed foreign aid for corruption and destitution in Mozambique, a sub-Saharan country where he was preaching to thousands in an outdoor arena. Despite the country's rich land and mineral resources, the Pope said, the people are trapped in poverty.

Pope Francis is right. In Mozambique, foreign aid — including nearly $300 million a year from the U.S., props up a corrupt government that demands bribes and fails to promote economic growth.

Although President Donald Trump has tried every year to slash global foreign aid, Congress refuses, thumbing its collective nose at the public, the president — and now even the Pope.

Instead of foreign aid, charity should start at home, especially when suicides, addiction deaths and other "deaths of despair" are soaring in the most depressed areas of America. Suicides are up 33% since 1999. The cause is economic stagnation as coal mines close, manufacturing jobs disappear, and hope fades, according to Ohio State University research published Friday.

Yet, far-off Mozambique just got a $110 million aid hike in May to improve education and health services. That money should go to schools and health clinics in Appalachia and the Ozarks, where it can actually do some good.

Tell that to Congress, which is gearing up for another foreign aid showdown this month. Spending bills, which Congress alone writes, are due Oct. 1. Trump wants a 23% cut in overall aid. In his dreams. Even his ally Sen. Lindsey Graham says Trump's proposal is dead on arrival.

Members of Congress, regardless of party, have a high and mighty attitude that American taxpayers should send their hard-earned money to every corner of the world. U.S. foreign aid totals over $50 billion a year. One-third is spent on military and security aid. An argument can be made for that. But well over $30 billion goes to health, education and other assistance, primarily to countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Brookings Institute president John Allen, a foreign aid enthusiast, slams Trump's proposed cuts, saying millions of teens in South Asia and sub-Saharan African will need "competency in science, technology, engineering and math if they are to be successful in the economy of tomorrow." What about American teens? Our STEM scores are deplorable. And over 1 million American teens drop out of high school every year.

As for the countries receiving aid, it's usually done more harm than good, according to economist William Easterly, who drew that conclusion while working at the World Bank. Countries on the receiving end remain mired in poverty.

Aid also seldom wins friends for the United States. Trump is determined to end lavishing money on our enemies. When Nikki Haley was Trump's United Nations ambassador, she objected to countries gorging on U.S. aid and then voting against us at the U.N. She warned, "When Foreign Aid Goes To Countries That Take Our Generosity And Bite Our Hand ... it's time to stop it."

Trump asked Congress to prioritize aid to America's friends. Not much to ask, but Congress refused. The president's critics call it "self-serving." It's common sense. Trump is finalizing a policy, Politico reports, to reward allies and cut off unfriendly countries.

As for Central America, globalists complain that Trump's cuts make conditions worse, resulting in more migrants on the southern border. The facts prove otherwise. Research from the Center for Global Development shows that aid does not deter migration.

Americans are generous. We give more to charity — $400 billion annually — than all national governments including the U.S. combined, according to Charity Navigator. But we get to decide where to give it.

Foreign aid has a long record of failure. Americans can see that, and so can the pope.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York State.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

]]>Betsy@cfif.org (Betsy McCaughey)Foreign PolicyWed, 11 Sep 2019 12:06:07 +0000Trump and His GOP Challengershttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4663-trump-and-his-gop-challengers
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4663-trump-and-his-gop-challengersMark Sanford, the former representative and governor of South Carolina, has now joined former representative Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld in challenging President Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination.

Of course they have no chance. But the hope of some Democrats and NeverTrumpers is that a primary challenge will weaken the president enough that he will lose to his Democratic opponent in the general election.

Trump adversaries often note that no president who has faced a significant primary challenge in the last 50 years has gone on to win re-election.

They point to President George H.W. Bush, who lost in 1992 after a primary challenge by Pat Buchanan. To Jimmy Carter, who lost in 1980 after a primary challenge by Ted Kennedy. To Gerald Ford, who lost in 1976 after a primary challenge by Ronald Reagan. And to Lyndon Johnson, who withdrew in 1968 after a primary challenge by Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy.

How can Donald Trump have a chance to win in 2020, now that he is facing challengers of his own?

The answer is that there are primary challenges and then there are primary challenges.

To say the least, there is a significant stature gap between Sanford-Walsh-Weld and the challengers of the past. Robert Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy were major political figures at the height of their careers when they decided to take on sitting presidents. Buchanan was a well-known White House aide, commentator, television personality and all-around legend among conservatives.

Sanford, Walsh and Weld are all former officeholders whose best years in politics are behind them.

"Let me ask you something," Buchanan told me in a recent conversation. "If Trump were not running in 2020, how would Joe Walsh and Bill Weld and Mark Sanford do in the New Hampshire primary? They would do nothing. Their calling card is, we can't stand Trump and he ought to be thrown out. If that's all it is, it's wholly negative."

Buchanan stunned Bush in New Hampshire in February 1992, taking 37% of the vote against the president's winning total of 53%. Buchanan went on to chip away at Bush, winning between 20% and 35% of the vote in primary after primary. When it was over, Buchanan totaled 22% of the vote overall.

He did it on the strength of a solid agenda. Reading Buchanan's Dec. 10, 1991, speech announcing his candidacy, one is struck today by how contemporary it sounds — Buchanan staking out positions on trade, nationalism, interventionism, culture and the economy that seem remarkably current. "We will put America first," Buchanan declared.

Besides his obvious talent, Buchanan had other advantages over today's challengers. Perhaps the biggest is that he was the only GOP opponent of the president. The other was that Bush had always had a problem with the more conservative wing of the Republican Party.

"That's where the vacuum was," Buchanan recalled. "It was among conservative Republicans dissatisfied with Bush, who believed Bush had promised certain things, and hadn't delivered, and didn't care about them."

That is how Buchanan, a conservative favorite, won 37% of the vote in New Hampshire against a president of his own party. But is there an analogous situation today with Trump, not among conservatives, with whom Trump is quite popular, but with moderate Republicans? Perhaps there is an opportunity for a hypothetical not-Trump candidate. But it seems unlikely that Weld, or Walsh, or Sanford would be that candidate.

The president has serious reasons to worry about losing in the general election. In the RealClearPolitics average of polls, his job approval rating stands at 43%, against a 53.9% disapproval rating. Even though Trump won in 2016 with a high personal disapproval rating, there's no assurance the states that gave him the election by narrow margins last time — Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — will go for him again next year.

But a Trump defeat, should there be one, would be the result of Trump himself, and not his GOP opponents. Separately or as a whole, today's challengers are simply not on the level of the Kennedys, Reagan or Buchanan.

Still, some of Trump's opponents hope a primary challenge might cripple Trump. Nothing is impossible, but the fact is, 2020 is not 1992, or 1980, or 1976. Trump might indeed lose, but it won't be at the hands of the retreads who are challenging him in the GOP primaries.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. COPYRIGHT 2019 BYRON YORK

]]>byron.york@cfif.org (Byron York)State of AffairsWed, 11 Sep 2019 11:13:49 +0000Dems Propose First Gun Grab Since Lexington and Concordhttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4658-dems-propose-first-gun-grab-since-lexington-and-concord
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4658-dems-propose-first-gun-grab-since-lexington-and-concordOne wishes the media would stop using absurdly lazy phrases like "mandatory gun buybacks." Unless the politician they're talking about is in the business of selling firearms, it's impossible for him to "buy back" anything. No government official — not Joe Biden, not Beto O'Rourke, not any of the candidates who now support "buyback" programs — has ever sold firearms.

What Democrats propose can be more accurately described as "the first American gun confiscation effort since Lexington and Concord," or some variation on that theme. Although tax dollars will be meted out in an effort to incentivize volunteers, the policy is to confiscate AR-15s, the vast majority of which have been legally purchased by Americans who have undergone background checks and never used a gun for a criminal purpose.

The "mandatory gun buyback" exemplifies the impracticality and absurdity of do-somethingism. Democrats want to turn millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals overnight for refusing to adhere to a law that retroactively transforms the exercise of a constitutional right into a crime.

And they do it without any evidence that it would curtail rare mass shootings or save lives.

While national confiscation would be unprecedented in American history, we already possess hard evidence that bans of assault rifles don't alter gun violence trends. Gun homicides continued to drop steeply after an "assault weapons" ban expired in 2004.

It's also worth noting that in 2017, the last year of available FBI data, there was a near-historic low of 7,032 murders with handguns, and 403 by "rifles" of any kind, not only "assault weapons." To put that in perspective, there were 1,591 knife homicides during that same span, 467 people killed with blunt objects, and another 696 with fists and kicking.

Although a number of Democrats now unequivocally support a "buyback," no one has explained how the procedure will unfurl. What will the penalty be for ignoring the "buybacks"? Fines? Prison terms? Will local police be tasked with opening case files on the 100 million homes of suspected gun owners who are armed with hundreds of millions of firearms, or will it be the FBI?

Maybe Democrats will propose "paying back" family members and neighbors who snitch on gun owners? How else will they figure out who owns these AR-15s? There is no national tracking of sales.

Then again, many Democrats support "universal background checks," which would necessitate a national database. So subsequent confiscations would be far easier, I suppose. (I can remember a time not very long ago when liberals accused a person of being a tin-foil-hatted nutter for merely suggesting that anyone had designs on their guns.)

It's unclear to me if every candidate supports mandatory buybacks. Imprecision, after all, is the hallmark of gun control rhetoric. Of course a noncoercive "buyback" program wouldn't work either because no patriotic American is going to sell his firearms under market value. If you pay gun owners more than market value, they will surely turn a profit and purchase new weapons.

The criminal class and deranged would-be mass shooters have absolutely no incentive to participate, anyway. But you knew that.

Then there is the little matter of constitutionality. I've noticed an uptick in gun grabbers — a phrase that's no longer hyperbole — arguing that Americans don't need AR-15s to hunt, as if it mattered.

Although ARs are used by hunters, I'm certain nothing in the Second Amendment mentions hunting, because the right of self-defense — an individual concern, as well as a collective one — has nothing to do with shooting deer and everything to do with protecting Americans from those who endeavor to strip them of their inalienable rights.

The District of Columbia v. Heller decision found that the Second Amendment protected weapons "in common use by law-abiding citizens." The AR-15 clearly meets both criteria. It's one of the most popular guns in America. Its semi-automatic mechanism is the same mechanism found in a majority of other legal firearms in the nation.

The arguments for a ban on "assault weapons" — a purposefully elastic phrase that allows the liberal legislator's imagination to run wild — is centered on aesthetics, on the false claim that the AR is a "weapon of war," and on the firearm tastes of a handful of deranged, sociopathic murderers.

Democrats and their allies like to mock these sorts of arguments as nothing more than semantics; mostly because they need to conflate and euphemize terms to make their arguments work. It's how they generate favorable polling. I'm sure you've heard about the popularity of gun-control measures. But like "Medicare for All," and other vaguely positive sounding policies, once voters learn what specifics entail, those numbers tend to settle along the usual partisan lines.

If you think you're going to have overwhelming support for "mandatory gun buybacks" when people learn that you're really talking about "the confiscation of 20 million guns," you're fooling yourself.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of the book "First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History With the Gun."
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

]]>mark.donahoohatchell+DavidHarsanyi@gmail.com (David Harsanyi)State of AffairsFri, 06 Sep 2019 11:10:19 +0000Gun Controllers: The Most Uninformed Among Leftist Subgroupshttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4654-gun-controllers-the-most-uninformed-among-leftist-subgroups
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4654-gun-controllers-the-most-uninformed-among-leftist-subgroupsI sometimes ponder which among the political left’s subgroups tends to be the most unsavory.

Granted, there’s a great deal of overlap among those subgroups. Nevertheless, they are in some ways discrete and distinguishable.

In terms of transparent insincerity, the climate alarmists maintain a wide lead.

Consider that political leaders like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez incessantly lecture us that we’re running out of time to save the planet from man-caused climate change. They’ve explicitly asserted a ten-year timeline until we reach a “tipping point” after which recovery will be impossible – never mind that we’ve been warned of similar ten-year windows since at least the 1980s. Yet when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) took them at their word and put their “Green New Deal” to a vote, not a single one of them voted in favor. Not one.

Similarly, celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Katy Perry signal their virtue demanding that people change their lifestyles to avert climate disaster. But when was the last time one of them canceled an overseas vacation or red carpet appearance because of the damage the flight would inflict upon the planet?

In terms of sheer ignorance, however, Second Amendment restrictionists claim the ignoble prize.

First and most fundamentally, gun controllers falsely assume that the United States suffers an extraordinarily high murder rate as a direct result of our high firearm possession rate.

To their credit, they’re correct in one respect: The U.S does maintain the world’s highest firearm possession rate, by far. According to the 2017 Small Arms Survey, the estimated U.S. civilian firearms possession rate is 120.5 per 100 citizens. In other words, there are more guns in civilian possession than there are citizens. That’s almost twice as high as the second-highest rate in the Falkland Islands, with 62.1 per 100 people.

So with such an astronomically high firearm possession rate, the U.S. naturally suffers a comparatively high murder rate, right?

That’s where gun controllers veer wildly off the rails. The simple reality is that the U.S. murder rate falls substantially below the worldwide average, at just 5.3 per 100,000. That’s one slot better than Greenland, with its 5.31 per 100,000. By comparison, next-door Mexico effectively prohibits firearm possession, but suffers a murder rate of 24.80 per 100,000.

Moreover, the U.S. murder rate has plummeted by almost half since 1993, while at the same time our firearm possession rate has approximately doubled. Whether that suggests that more guns bring less crime, in the words of Dr. John Lott, is a debate for another time. But at the very least, the opposite suggestion that more guns mean more crime fails the simple test of fact and recent historical experience.

Another way in which gun controllers demonstrate their ignorance is in their incessant assertion that the U.S. suffers an epidemic of mass shootings unknown to other civilized nations. The truth, as the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) has shown, is that the U.S. mass shooting rate falls below most other European nations. Out of 18 nations in Europe and North America, the U.S. stands 12th, below such countries as Norway, Finland, Belgium, Austria and France, and just one place above Canada at 13th.

In a broader worldwide comparison, the CPRC finds the same reality:

[T]he U.S. makes up less than 1.1% of mass public shooters, 1.49% of their murders, and 2.20% of their attacks. All these are much less than the U.S.’s 4.6% share of the world population. Attacks in the U.S. are not only less frequent than other countries, they are also much less deadly on average. Out of 97 countries where we have identified mass public shootings occurring, the United States ranks 64th in per capita frequency of these attacks and 65th in the murder rate. Not only have these attacks been much more common outside the U.S., the U.S.’s share of these attacks has declined over time.

Another area in which Second Amendment restrictionists betray their ignorance is in their fashionable call for a so-called “assault weapons” ban.

In fact, a federal “assault weapons” ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004, and gun controllers predicted doom when it was allowed to expire during the Bush Administration. Instead, the U.S. murder rate fell nearly 20% from 2004 through 2011.

All of this information is readily available to Second Amendment proponents and restrictionists alike. Whether restrictionists are guilty of deliberate dishonesty, simple ignorance or some amalgam thereof is open to speculation.

But what’s beyond debate is the fact that gun controllers’ agenda is untethered from simple, demonstrable fact.

]]>tlee@cfif.org (Timothy H. Lee)State of AffairsThu, 05 Sep 2019 13:52:04 +0000The Ghosts of World War IIhttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4652-the-ghosts-of-world-war-ii
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4652-the-ghosts-of-world-war-iiWorld War II ended 74 years ago. But even in the 21st century, the lasting effects endure, both psychological and material. After all, the war took more than 60 million lives, redrew the map of Europe and ended with the Soviet Union and the United States locked in a Cold War of nuclear superpowers.

Japan and South Korea should logically remain natural allies. Both are booming capitalist constitutional states. Decades ago both nations emerged from devastating wars. And in pacifist fashion they vowed never to suffer such mass carnage again.

Both nations are staunch allies of the United States. They are likewise similarly suspicious of their neighbor, aggressive communist China, which threatens their economies and security. Yet Tokyo and Seoul are now more adversaries than democratic allies, and they are locked in a bitter fight. In their acrimony over trade and past war reparations, neither can forget World War II.

South Koreans continue to press for more reparations to atone for the horrific treatment of the Korean Peninsula by Japanese occupiers and imperialists. Imperial Japan stripped Korea's natural resources and exported thousands of Korean women to war zones to be raped by Japanese troops.

The wealthier that South Korea becomes, the more an ascendant Seoul begins to rival — and worry — Tokyo. And the more distant World War II becomes, the more Japan and South Korea relive their bitter shared wartime past.

The United States has had difficulty forming a Pacific alliance of containment against a bellicose China. Australia, the Philippines and Southeast Asian nations fear Chinese aggression. But they also share bitter memories of merciless Japanese imperialism that killed as many as 15 million Chinese — the vast majority of them civilians.

In their minds, our allies know China is the chief threat. But in their hearts, even now they can't quite forget how their ally Japan once committed genocide throughout the region.

NATO was designed to avoid another European war and the constant threat bullying from Germany and Russia. NATO's creed, first, was that the United States should stay engaged in Europe and never again allow it to commit collective suicide. Second, America was to keep Russia out of Western Europe as it did in at the end of World War II. Third, the alliance must keep Germany "down" so it would never start another European war. That third element of the original NATO mission is often laughed at as entirely irrelevant today.

But is it? Germany now dominates the European Union. Its banks squeeze Southern European countries for overdue loan payments. Berlin pressures Eastern Europe — whose leaders grew up with lectures about the nightmares of Nazi Germany — to follow Berlin's disastrous open borders plan. That laxity has resulted in more than a million migrants flocking into the EU from the Middle East and North Africa.

Berlin also tried to hold the United Kingdom hostage to prevent Brexit — the verdict of the British people, a majority of whom voted to leave the EU. Less than half of today's German population has a favorable view of America, the country whose troops and nuclear umbrella still keep a virtually unarmed Germany secure.

A clairvoyant in 1945 might have warned both Europe and the United States that a "Fourth Reich" financial powerhouse would someday dominate Europe.

In addition, Germany still has an existential fear of Russia. After all, more than 3 million German soldiers perished on the Eastern Front in World War II. Millions of German-speakers were ethnically cleansed from postwar Russia and Eastern Europe by the Russian Army.

No wonder that German Chancellor Angela Merkel seeks close ties with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's autocratic Russia. As was true during the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, Germany once again has little if any ability to ward off Russian aggression, whether conventional or nuclear, and knows it.

Finally, a recent poll of Americans reveals a veritable abyss between younger and older Americans. Today's millennials, children of the postwar baby boomers, grew up in the affluence of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. They claim that they will be far less likely to marry, to value religion or to feel patriotic.

In contrast, those who were once children during World War II, or who had parents and grandparents who fought in the war, have a far more realistic appraisal of human nature and the need to find security, stability and transcendence in a dangerous world.

One way of keeping sane and safe during and after such a global catastrophe was to marry and raise a family, to believe in God, and to appreciate the unique morality and strength of a victorious United States.

]]>mark.donahoohatchell+vdhanson@gmail.com (Victor Davis Hanson)State of AffairsThu, 05 Sep 2019 05:51:01 +0000Yes, Comey Did Leak Classified Informationhttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4651-yes-comey-did-leak-classified-information
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4651-yes-comey-did-leak-classified-informationThe new report from the Justice Department inspector general proves beyond any doubt that fired FBI Director James Comey leaked sensitive law enforcement material in the Trump-Russia investigation. Doing so set a "dangerous example" for the bureau's other employees, Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote.

Still, Comey's supporters have claimed exoneration on one front: that Comey did not leak classified information. Some reacted angrily when President Trump tweeted that Comey had done so.

But Comey did, in fact, leak classified information. It's right there in the report. It wasn't much classified information, and it was perhaps not terribly important, and Justice Department officials concluded it was not worth prosecuting. But the fact is, Comey leaked classified material.

Comey implicitly recognized as much even as he claimed vindication. In a tweet, Comey quoted the report, saying: "DOJ IG 'found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media.'" To that, Comey added, "I don't need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a 'sorry we lied about you' would be nice."

But the portion of the report Comey highlighted said he did not release classified information to members of the media. That's true; Comey, through his friend and lawyer Daniel Richman, leaked sensitive but unclassified law enforcement material to the media. But it's also true that Comey leaked classified information to his lawyers. Comey gave classified information to people who were not authorized to receive it.

Comey wrote seven memos about his interactions with President Trump. In June 2017, the month after Comey was fired, the FBI checked the memos to see if any contained classified information. From the report: "The FBI determined that Memos 1 and 3 contained information classified at the 'SECRET' level, and that Memos 2 and 7 contained small amounts of information classified at the 'CONFIDENTIAL' level. The FBI designated Memos 4, 5, and 6 as unclassified 'For Official Use Only.'"

Memo 4 was the one Comey leaked, through Richman, to The New York Times with the hope of setting off a firestorm that would result in the appointment of a special counsel. The inspector general concluded the leak violated Justice Department and FBI policy, as well as Comey's terms of employment. But it had no classified material in it.

The problem for Comey was Memo 2, which he sent to Richman and also to Comey's two other lawyers, Patrick Fitzgerald and David Kelley. "Of the memos Comey shared with his attorneys, Memo 2 contained six words that the FBI determined in June 2017 to be classified at the 'CONFIDENTIAL' level," the inspector general report said. In a footnote, the report added: "Four of the six words in Memo 2 that the FBI determined were classified were the names of foreign countries being discussed by the president. ... The president referenced the countries when he conveyed his personal views on the relative importance of promptly returning telephone calls from the leadership of the named countries."

Comey, who as director was something known as an OCA, or Original Classification Authority, had the power to classify material on his own. He did not classify Memo 2 at the time he wrote it, but an FBI team later determined it should have been classified. When the document was released to the public, portions were blacked out to reflect that classification.

Another indication of the material's status as classified was that the FBI took extensive steps to remove it from the computers and devices of the three lawyers who received it. In June 2017 the FBI dispatched agents to Richman's home to take away his desktop computer, returning it nine days later "after taking steps to permanently remove the memos from it," the report said. Later, the FBI took steps to clean the other lawyers' email accounts.

It was a lot of work. "The FBI wouldn't have wasted time deleting copies of Memo 2 from Comey's lawyers' email accounts if it didn't contain classified information," a source familiar with the interactions between the FBI, the inspector general's office, and oversight committees on Capitol Hill about the classified cleanup efforts told me. "There is no doubt Comey leaked that classified memo to his counsel, and oversight committees have known about the clean-up operation since it first occurred."

Comey's defenders can argue that just a few words on Memo 2 were classified. They can argue, as Comey apparently believes, that even those words should not have been classified. But the fact is, they were classified, and Comey sent them to unauthorized recipients, and after the FBI learned about it, the bureau took steps to clean up what it called a "spill" of classified material.

In the end, the Justice Department decided that given the small amount of classified material involved, and given that it was formally classified after Comey sent it, and given the difference of opinion on whether it should be classified at all, prosecuting Comey was not warranted. That's the kind of judgment prosecutors make. But it doesn't change the fact: Comey leaked classified information.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. COPYRIGHT 2019 BYRON YORK

]]>byron.york@cfif.org (Byron York)State of AffairsWed, 04 Sep 2019 14:03:53 +0000The Left Can't Stop Lying About the Tea Partyhttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/59-media-issues/4650-the-left-cant-stop-lying-about-the-tea-party
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/59-media-issues/4650-the-left-cant-stop-lying-about-the-tea-party"In the late summer of 2009, as the recession-ravaged economy bled half a million jobs a month, the country seemed to lose its mind," The New York Times says, kicking off its 10th anniversary retrospective of the tea party movement. As you can imagine, the rest of the article continues in this vein, portraying conservatives who organized against Obamacare as a bunch of vulgar radicals.

Yet even this kind revisionism wasn't enough for most contemporary leftists, who see everything through the prism of race.

"A fundamental flaw in this analysis is there is no mention of race and how much racism drove the Tea Party movement," ABC's Matthew Dowd claimed. "You can't talk about the rage politics and leave out race."

"How do you write a 10 years later piece on the Tea Party and not mention — not once, not even in passing — the fact that it was essentially a hysterical grassroots tantrum about the fact that a black guy was president?" asked non-biased Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery, calling it journalistic "malpractice."

Well, you get the idea.

In the first draft of this column, I joked that The New York Times might add a line about tea party "racism" before the day was over to placate the Twitter mob. They did it before I could even publish. But it doesn't change the fact that there's no evidence that a "good deal" — or any substantial deal, for that matter — of the tea party's popularity was propelled by racism.

For one thing, the wealthy white leader of Congress at the time was just as unpopular among tea partyers as the black president. And as we've seen, had Hillary Clinton won the 2008 election, she would have generated no less anger among conservatives.

No, it was Barack Obama's leftist rhetoric and unprecedented unilateralism — he had, after all, promised "fundamental change" — that ignited what amounts to a renewed Reaganism, a fusing of idealistic constitutionalism and economic libertarianism.

Tea party protesters not only felt like they were under assault from Democrats but that they had been abandoned by the GOP establishment. If you really wanted to hear them "rage," though, you could always bring up the Caucasian former Republican president, George W. Bush, who had "abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."

As with any spontaneous political movement, some bad actors glommed onto protests. The New York Times article, for instance, informs us that "one demonstrator at a rally in Maryland hanged a member of Congress in effigy" and that a "popular bumper sticker was 'Honk If I'm Paying Your Mortgage'" — as if we're supposed to be offended by the latter.

Left-wing protesters, no matter how puerile, hateful or bigoted, are typically depicted as righteous agents of change. Conservatives and libertarians, on the other hand, "rage." The "summer of rage" typically refers to the riots that swept a number of American cities in 1967. The tea party protests never turned violent. There were no riots. No broken Starbucks windows. It was the most peaceful "rage" you're ever going to see.

A CBS/New York Times poll at time, in fact, found that the average tea party activist was more educated than the average American, and their concerns mirrored the mainstream. Although a majority was more socially conservative than the average voter — particularly on abortion — 8 in 10 of them wanted their burgeoning movement to focus on economic issues rather than social ones.

Hardly the anarchists depicted in the media, a majority of tea partyers wanted to reduce the size of government rather than focus on cutting budget deficits or even lowering taxes, the poll found. A majority, in fact, believed that Social Security and Medicare were worthy taxpayer burdens.

Not even clamping down on illegal immigration, often the impetus for charges of racism these days, was a big topic among these activists.

The tea party had three main grievances: Obamacare, government spending and "a feeling that their opinions are not represented in Washington." The protests were fueled by Democrats' unprecedented action on a health care policy. A decade later, the tea party's suspicion that the health care law was merely an incremental way to move toward socialist policies turned out to be correct, as most of the Democratic Party presidential field can attest.

One thing is true, though: The majority of tea partiers were white. You know what that means, right? And as those of us who covered the Obama administration remember, no matter how historically detailed or ideologically anchored your position might be, the very act of opposing a black president was going to be depicted as act of bigotry.

This cheap and destructive rhetoric now dominates virtually every contemporary debate, most of which have absolutely nothing, even tangentially, to do with race. It's a kind of rhetoric, in fact, that retroactively dominates our debates, as well.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of the book "First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History With the Gun."
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

In an unsurprising yet nevertheless bleak register of the state of contemporary culture, seedier elements of the political left, who ironically accuse Donald Trump of degrading societal discourse, erupted in a ghoulish celebratory chorus.

For example, crowds at rallies for 2020 presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren openly cheered the announcement, although at least Sanders possessed the fortitude to interrupt them. Not so Ms. Warren, who proceeded to heap her trademark zealot’s scorn:

And then along come Big Oil, big polluters, the Koch brothers. They come in, and they say, “You know, this could be a problem. If our government, our federal government gets really serious about climate change, they’re going to bite into our own profits. If they change the regulations, that’s going to disrupt how we do business.” So they have an investment decision to make.

Stay classy, Elizabeth Warren.

As is often the case, however, nobody stooped to the depths of classlessness exhibited by HBO’s resident gargoyle Bill Maher. “He and his brother have done more than anybody to fund climate science deniers for decades,” Maher ranted. “So [expletive] him, the Amazon is burning up, I’m glad he’s dead, and I hope the end was painful.”

Beyond the tawdriness, however, there’s a bizarre illogic to such celebrations, which we also witnessed when conservative figures like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher passed.

Namely, why is it that cackling leftists consider it some sort of burn when someone they detest dies of natural causes after almost 80 years of life, and after achieving almost unparalleled professional success? Alongside his brother Charles, Koch built the second-largest privately held enterprise in the United States. Isn’t that a life to which almost everyone in the world would aspire?

By any reasonable measure, Koch’s was a life fully and successfully lived.

But beyond that, in contrast with so many of his detractors, Mr. Koch lived a life of integrity.

As just one manifestation of that, Mr. Koch donated an astounding $1.3 billion of his own wealth to charitable causes, including hospitals and the arts. He matched word with deed.

In contrast, many among the political left are more interested in redirecting other people’s money to interest groups they favor. Earlier this year, Sanders himself was asked why he claimed to oppose the Trump tax cuts, yet filed his own tax returns under the lower tax rate rather than the rate he advocates for others. Instead of answering that inconvenient question, the millionaire Sanders literally scoffed and attempted to change the subject to Trump’s tax returns, a non sequitur.

And how much have Elizabeth Warren and Bill Maher cumulatively donated to charity? Somehow, one suspects that the amount falls well short of Mr. Koch’s $1.3 billion.

More fundamentally, Mr. Koch accumulated his wealth by serving society. His enterprises offer products that society wants, and purchase voluntarily. Sanders, in comparison, has spent his career in government, paid a salary through taxation, rather than by offering a service or product that others voluntarily buy.

Moreover, Mr. Koch supported a heterodox array of causes, including criminal justice reform. Former prisoner Chandra Bozelko, author of the Prison Diaries blog, explained in The Wall Street Journal how Kochs‘ support reflected humanitarian concerns and allowed the reform movement to flourish:

By giving money to reform organizations, the Kochs made it easier for conservative politicians to support the movement, enabling many of the legislative changes we see today at both the federal and state levels – including the federal First Step Act of 2018 and Florida’s Amendment 4, a ballot initiative to restore voting rights for felons. Cash bail reform received an infusion of funds from Koch Industries last year… I’m honored to work with groups funded and supported by him and his brother because I know that they’re pursuing the same humanitarian goals I am for the almost 2.3 million people who are incarcerated and the approximately 11.3 million family members who go through the criminal justice system with them.

Hardly the deeds of a heartless right-wing maniac who deserves the left’s frothing hatred.

The simple fact is that David Koch was an honorable man who actually backed his professed ideals with action and personal sacrifice, and made our world a better place for it. May he rest in peace.

Rather, the fresh celebrity "Squad" of newly elected identity-politics congresswomen — Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — often either claim to be socialists or embrace socialist ideas. A recent Harris poll showed that about half of so-called millennials would like to live in a socialist country.

Five years ago, septuagenarian Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) was considered an irrelevant lone socialist in the U.S. Senate — Vermont's trademark contribution to cranky quirkiness. But in 2016, Sanders' improbable Democratic primary run almost knocked off front-runner Hillary Clinton, even as socialist governments were either imploding or stagnating the world over.

After Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 general election, Sanders is back, running as a socialist warhorse, promising endless amounts of free stuff, with those promises suddenly being taken seriously.

Sanders, like the members of the Squad, has limited political power. But the celebrity and social media influence of these new and retread socialists has been on the upswing — especially in the current 21st century climate of radical transformations in economic and political life.

Note the shock over Clinton's 2016 defeat, the furor directed at a take-no-prisoners Trump, and sudden progressive criticism of the Obama presidency as too temporizing, weak and ineffectual. And there are still other undercurrents that explain why currently socialism polls so well among young Americans.

College-educated Americans collectively owe an estimated $1.5 trillion in unpaid student loans. Many of these debtors despair of ever paying back the huge sums.

Cancelling debt is an ancient socialist rallying cry. Starting over with a clean slate appeals to those "oppressed" with college loans.

A force multiplier of debt is the realization that many students borrowed to focus on mostly irrelevant college majors. Such degrees usually offer few opportunities to find jobs high-paying enough to pay back staggering obligations.

Asymmetrical globalization over the last 30 years has created levels of wealth among the elite never envisioned in the history of civilization. In addition to these disparities, "free" but unfair trade, especially with China and to a lesser extent with the European Union, Japan and South Korea, hollowed out the interior of the United States, impoverishing and diluting the once-solid middle class. Warped free trade and Chinese buccaneerism, not free-market capitalism per se, impoverished millions of Americans.

Lots of young people claim to be socialists but are instead simply angry because they cannot afford a home, a new car or nice things in their "woke" urban neighborhoods.

Usually, Americans become more traditional, self-reliant and suspicious of big government as they age. Reasons for such conservatism have often included early marriage, child-raising, home ownership and residence in a suburb, small town or rural area.

Today's youth are generally marrying later. Most have few if any children. Twenty- and thirty-somethings are not buying homes as quickly or easily as in the past. They are concentrating in the urban centers of big- and medium-sized coastal blue cities such as Boston, New York, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle — but often in dead-end jobs that pay them just enough to get by and enjoy the perks of cool life in the big city.

These are the ingredients for a culture that emphasizes the self, blames others for a sense of personal failure and wants instant social justice.

Finally, schools and colleges have replaced the empirical study of economics, history and politics with race, class and gender indoctrination.

Few young activists of the old Occupy Wall Street bunch, and few of the current violent Antifa street fighters, know the 20th century history of "socialists" who were actually hardcore communists. Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, Soviet Union strongman Joseph Stalin and Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong each killed millions of their own people.

Today's students romanticize Che Guevara and Fidel Castro because they are clueless about their bloody careers. The Castro government for over a half-century was responsible for the murders of thousands of Cubans and Latin Americans in efforts to solidify Cuban "socialism" throughout Latin America.

When our schools and colleges do not teach unbiased economics and history, then millions of youth have no idea why the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Japan became wealthy and stable by embracing free-market capitalism and constitutional government. Few learn why naturally rich nations such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela or entire regions such as Central America, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia — have traditionally lagged far behind due to years of destructive central planning, socialist economics and coerced communist government.

The handmaiden of failed socialist regimes has always been ignorance of the past and present. And that is never truer than among today's American college-degreed (but otherwise economically and historically illiterate) youth.

]]>mark.donahoohatchell+vdhanson@gmail.com (Victor Davis Hanson)EducationThu, 29 Aug 2019 05:28:46 +0000China's Chemical Warfare http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/45-foreign-policy/4642-chinas-chemical-warfare-
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/45-foreign-policy/4642-chinas-chemical-warfare-President Donald Trump got slammed by all sides — Democrats, the media and European politicians — for suddenly escalating economic war with China on Friday. But for Americans who have lost a family member or friend to the Chinese-made street drug fentanyl, Trump's harsh pivot is the right move.

He hiked tariffs on Chinese goods, labeled President Xi Jinping an "enemy" and told U.S. companies manufacturing in China to pull out. Wall Street went into a tailspin, and partisans called Trump "unhinged."

By Monday, Trump had changed his tone, in response to friendly overtures from China. But the reality is that harsh words and economic threats are what's needed. China has been waging chemical warfare against us for several years, flooding our neighborhoods with poison.

In the last three years alone, fentanyl and similar synthetic opioids manufactured in Chinese labs have killed 79,000 Americans. That's more than the American combatants killed in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq combined. And like those combatants, most fentanyl victims are young.

Chinese-made narcotics started showing up on our streets in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year, overdose deaths soared, but the Obama administration never confronted China to stop its deadly assault.

Trump is fighting back. Instead of soldiers and bullets, he's using tariffs and other economic sanctions. How civilized of him. "We're losing thousands of people to fentanyl," Trump told reporters Friday night. "This is more important than anything else that we're working on."

Trump explained that China's refusal to curb the flood of fentanyl is a major reason for the tariff hikes. Outraged by the tens of thousands of deaths caused by Chinese-made fentanyl, Trump tweeted, "President Xi said this would stop - it didn't."

In fact, China is refusing to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement. Federal authorities have indicted three Chinese drug kingpins who manufacture fentanyl and fentanyl ingredients and use the internet to market the lethal drugs to Americans. China won't extradite the accused to the U.S. and instead is allowing them to continue to operate freely.

Trump's critics, like Bryce Pardo of the RAND Corporation, claim that getting tough with China is futile because China doesn't have the inspectors or law enforcement to shut the poison factories. That's nonsense. A country with the brutal totalitarian apparatus to enforce a one-child policy — which China did for years, dictating what went on in the bedroom — can control what gets sold on the internet and put in the mail. China's synthetic opioid factories typically employ hundreds of people seated at internet terminals, openly selling their lethal wares.

The Obama administration, and many Democrats even now, insist the right strategy is to fund drug treatment programs and expand Medicaid, curbing the demand for killer street drugs rather than cutting off the supply. Actually, we need to do both — attack the supplier and treat the addicts. In war, you don't stop fighting the enemy while you're bandaging the wounded.

For years, the United States Postal Service has been the Chinese drug dealers' shipping method of choice. The feds did nothing until Congress passed a law in 2018 requiring that every package from China be labeled with its content and origin. Still, only about 100 of the 1.3 million packages coming in every day actually get inspected by Customs and Border Protection. Friday, Trump tweeted, "I am ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE all deliveries of Fentanyl from China." A daunting task.

Some of the Chinese fentanyl supplies are actually shipped to Mexico and then smuggled across the southern border to the U.S. Inspecting packages at that border for fentanyl, a Congressional report concluded, is like "finding a needle in a haystack."

Trump knows that stopping the drugs on our border is less likely to succeed than stopping China from sending them.

Meanwhile, Monday morning, Trump announced that Chinese officials had called U.S. trade officials Sunday night and said, "Let's get back to the table."

Will Trump's hard-line stance on trade stop the drug massacre on America's streets? It's possible. Trump said Monday morning, reflecting on China's change of tone, that the Chinese "understand how life works."

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York State.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

]]>Betsy@cfif.org (Betsy McCaughey)Foreign PolicyWed, 28 Aug 2019 05:59:01 +0000Why Don't 2020 Democratic Also-Rans Quit The Race?http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4644-why-dont-2020-democratic-also-rans-quit-the-race
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4644-why-dont-2020-democratic-also-rans-quit-the-raceSo far, four Democratic presidential candidates — Eric Swalwell, John Hickenlooper, Seth Moulton and Jay Inslee — have dropped out of the 2020 race. What is amazing is that the number is only four, and that 21 Democrats are still running.

Why are they still in the race? Each has his or her reasons, but perhaps some are cherishing the hope, however far-fetched, that they might become the next Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum.

Looking at the five competitive primary races of the last dozen years — Democrats in 2008 and 2016 and Republicans in 2008, 2012 and 2016 — only two candidates have come out of nowhere to lead the race. In the 2008 GOP contest, it was Huckabee, and in the 2012 Republican race it was Santorum. Both ultimately finished second.

In late August 2007, Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, stood at 3.0 percent in the RealClearPolitics average. He climbed slowly, hitting 10 percent in December 2007, and then shot into contention, leading the race for a few days in January 2008. John McCain then took the lead and eventually won the nomination.

Still, Huckabee had climbed from nowhere to somewhere.

Four years later, in late August 2011, Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, was polling at 2.1 percent. He was at 4.0 percent when January 2012 arrived, but then zoomed up the polls to lead the race at 30 percent for a while in February. By March 1, though, he was out of the lead for good when Romney pulled ahead for the nomination.

Still, Santorum had climbed from nowhere to somewhere.

Of course, it wasn't enough; it should be noted that neither Huckabee nor Santorum won the nomination, nor was either picked for the vice-presidential slot, nor did either have any significant advantage when they ran again later on.

Nevertheless, there were benefits. After their runs, Huckabee and Santorum had far greater visibility, which translated into TV contracts, speaking fees and more opportunities. Each man was in a better place after running than before.

That could explain why some of the seemingly hopeless cases stay in the Democratic race. They don't have a chance of actually winning the nomination. There is an overwhelming likelihood the eventual nominee will come from one of the seven Democrats currently above 2.0 percent in the RealClearPolitics average: Joe Biden at 28.8 percent; Bernie Sanders at 16.0 percent; Elizabeth Warren 15.4 percent; Kamala Harris 7.4 percent; Pete Buttigieg 5.0 percent; Beto O'Rourke 3.0 percent; and Cory Booker 2.2 percent.

But for those at the bottom, there is still the hope of hitting it big, or sorta big. And much recent primary history suggests that there will indeed be major changes in the race.

For example, in late August 2007 in the Democratic contest, Hillary Clinton held a lead of more than 15 points over Barack Obama, 37.8 percent to 22.2 percent in the RealClearPolitics average. Clinton stayed in the lead from August through January 2008, until Obama pulled ahead in February. He never gave up the lead again and went on to win the nomination and the White House.

The warnings for today's front-runner, Joe Biden, are obvious.

On the Republican side in the 2008 race, in late August 2007, the leader was Rudy Giuliani, who held a 10-point advantage over Fred Thompson, 27.7 percent to 17.0 percent. Giuliani's lead lasted until January 2008, after which he fell steadily.

It's another obvious warning for Biden.

But what about the rest of today's Democratic field — not the cellar-dwellers, but the ones who might have a real chance? There are lessons for them, too, especially in the 2012 Republican race. Like today's race, it was fairly stable, with Romney in the lead, until August 2011. Then all hell broke loose.

First, Rick Perry took the lead. Then Romney took it back. Then Herman Cain surged into first place. Then Romney rose again, briefly. Then Newt Gingrich took the lead. Then Romney again. Then Gingrich again. Then Romney again. Then Santorum. And finally, Romney.

Everybody had a chance, or at least thought he had a chance, at some point in the race.

So there are reasons why today's Democratic field remains so large. The candidates in the top tiers are quite reasonably expecting some sort of re-sorting in coming months. And the candidates at the very bottom are looking to improve their lot before the inevitable surrender. It could take quite a while before many are convinced to give up.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. COPYRIGHT 2019 BYRON YORK

The first, as reported by USA Today, is that we’re experiencing a hurricane hiatus unlike anything we’ve witnessed in almost four decades:

If you think it’s been an unusually quiet hurricane season, you’re right. The last time we’ve gone from July 15 through August 19 with no named storms in the Atlantic was 1982, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach… [T]he latest hurricane forecast released Monday shows the rest of August appears to favor a quiet pattern for tropical storm and hurricane development in the Atlantic Basin, according to Colorado State.

So why is that notable?

Because every time a hurricane hits, or we experience a moment of higher hurricane frequency, we’re lectured again about how it reflects anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming.

Just two years ago, for instance, Scientific American asked, “Was the Extreme 2017 Hurricane Season Driven by Climate Change?”

Predictably, it answered, “Global warming already appears to be making hurricanes more intense.” It continued, “Summer and fall 2017 saw an unusual string of record-breaking hurricanes pummel the U.S. Gulf Coast, eastern seaboard, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.”

And before that, we were infamously warned in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that we should expect more frequent hurricanes of similar magnitude because of global warming.

Instead, we proceeded to experience the longest stretch in recorded history without a major-category hurricane hitting the United States.

That contravened everything that Al Gore and other scolds told us, of course. In typical fashion, Al Gore cast it in self-assured and moralistic terms during a speech in San Francisco on September 9, 2005:

Now, the scientific community is warning us that the average hurricane will continue to get stronger because of global warming… The waters in the Gulf have been unusually warm. The oceans generally have been getting warmer. And the pattern is exactly consistent with what scientists have predicted for twenty years. Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well-organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produce long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we at to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming…

Ladies and gentlemen, the warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences… The scientists are telling us that what the science tells them is that this – unless we act quickly and dramatically, that is – in Churchill’s phrase, is only the first sip of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year-by-year until there is a supreme recovery of moral health.

So much for that “scientific consensus.” It’s all become a thirty-year “Boy Who Cried Wolf” saga.

George Will once sardonically recalled an Oxford gathering at which Isaac Deutscher posited, “Proof of Trotsky’s farsightedness is that none of his predictions have come true yet.” Well, climate alarmists are approaching a similar state. All that’s left is for them to assure us that the absence of hurricanes only offers further proof of anthropogenic global warming.

In a second inconvenient truth this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that California is experiencing an unusually slow wildfire season:

California is off to one of its slowest wildfire seasons in years, giving firefighters and fire-prone communities a much-needed break after last year’s huge and destructive infernos. As of August 18, just 24,579 wildland acres have burned so far this year, compared with 621,784 at the same time last year, according to the most recent statistics by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. Emergency officials attribute the quieter year, in part, to a wet, cool spring that has tamped down wildfire activity across much of the West.

One year ago, in August 2018, ABC News ran a very different headline: “Undeniable Link to Climate Change in California’s Fire Season, Expert Says”:

Experts have said that rising temperatures linked to climate change are making the fires larger, more dangerous and more expensive to fight. After several record-breaking wildfires in California this year, Gov. Jerry Brown said the severe fires were the “new normal” for the state, and said that years of drought and rising temperatures from climate change contributed to the worsening fire season.

That’s some “new normal,” Governor Moonbeam – not even lasting one year.

Climate alarmists love to mislabel climate realists as climate change “deniers.” But that’s inaccurate. The climate is changing, as it always has and always will.

What people question is the way in which the climate-industrial complex conveniently sounds the alarm when the news fits their agenda, but disappears in moments like this.

That’s why alarmists have only themselves and their mendacity to blame for the pushback.

Recessions, or at least chronic economic pessimism, sink incumbents. Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were tagged with sluggish growth, high unemployment and a sense of perceived stagnation — and were easily defeated.

The 2008 financial crisis likely ended any chance for John McCain to continue eight years of Republican rule. Barack Obama campaigned on the message that incumbent George W. Bush was to blame for the meltdown and that McCain, his potential Republican successor, would be even worse.

A once-unpopular incumbent Ronald Reagan fought recession for three years. Yet he soared to a landslide victory in 1984 only after the gross domestic product suddenly took off at an annualized clip of over 7 percent prior to the election.

President Donald Trump's economy is still booming. But his opponents here and abroad are counting on a recession to derail him.

They hope that either the good times can't last forever or that Trump's trade war with China will scare investors and businesspeople into retrenchment. Or perhaps massive annual deficits and staggering debt will finally catch up to a financially reckless government.

China will do all it can to prompt a U.S. downturn before November 2020 in hopes that it can get a better deal from a new Democratic president.

Unpopular optional wars are just as lethal to incumbents. Vietnam ended any chance of Lyndon Johnson seeking re-election. Iraq sank the second term of George W. Bush and almost cost him his 2004 re-election bid. The Benghazi fiasco, the collapse of Iraq and the rise of ISIS during Obama's first term all made 2012 a far closer race than expected.

So far, Trump has been careful to avoid optional wars, nation-building and even so-called "police actions." North Korea and Iran both know that all too well. So, they are likely to push the envelope in the expectation that either Trump will have to backpedal in fear of defeat in 2020, or that his tough stance will disappear with the election of a more accommodating Democratic president.

Scandals also can ruin re-election bids and second presidential terms.

Richard Nixon's second term was cut short by Watergate. An impeached Bill Clinton lucked out that the Monica Lewinsky episode occurred after his successful re-election. Had the Iran-Contra scandal come to light in 1984 instead of 1986, Reagan might not have been re-elected in a landslide.

The 22-month Mueller investigation of "collusion" and "obstruction" proved a big dud. So too were serial efforts by Democrats to cut short Trump's first term.

Over the next 14 months, we may we see a quite different news cycle in which Trump's chief accusers — John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and Andrew McCabe — are cited for improper or even illegal conduct in their efforts to undermine the Trump campaign, transition and presidency.

Elections are not popularity contests. If they were, Trump might well lose handily, given that his approval ratings are consistently below 50 percent. Instead, they are choices between good and better — or bad and worse — candidates.

So far, the Democratic debates have been a great gift to Trump. The front-runners appear almost unhinged in promoting issues that that are not supported by a majority of Americans in polls. Those who sound moderate and centrist are either fading or, in the case of Joe Biden, face issues of competency, consistency and age.

Then there remain the known unknowns. Anything can happen before November 2020, from a hurricane to a third-party candidate.

Trump, our first president without either prior military or political experience, will remain a volatile candidate. He seems intent on replying to attacks without restraint through take-no-prisoners Twitter retorts, some of which turn off swing and suburban voters.

Yet no pundit has figured out whether Trump's Twitter storms are the key to revving up his base in swing states, and thus might earn him another Electoral College victory without winning the popular vote, or if they finally will become too much for fence-sitting voters.

Finally, candidates have to campaign. Some, like supposed 2016 shoo-in Hillary Clinton, do it more poorly than others.

Trump will have lots more money this time around. And he will now act like a veteran on the stump.

Trump will turn 74 in 2020. But his near-animal energy belies his age. Some of his potential opponents — Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — are in their 70s and seem to show their age more than Trump does.

Add up all these factors, and a currently unpopular Trump will still likely be harder to beat than his confident media detractors and enraged progressive critics can imagine.

]]>mark.donahoohatchell+vdhanson@gmail.com (Victor Davis Hanson)State of AffairsThu, 22 Aug 2019 13:01:48 +0000Ethnic Studies Latest Ploy to Brainwash Kids http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/48-education/4634-ethnic-studies-latest-ploy-to-brainwash-kids-
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/48-education/4634-ethnic-studies-latest-ploy-to-brainwash-kids-President Donald Trump told a rally last week: "We are all Americans. We all share the same home. We all share the same heart." He cautioned that "the radical Democrats are trying to tear this country apart" with their divisive identity politics.

Warning to parents: Left-wing activists are using these same divisive tactics to target your kids' schools and co-opt their young minds. Across the country, leftists are demanding that public schools teach "ethnic studies." Don't be fooled by the title. Many of these courses demonize America's past, label whites as oppressors and convert students into "social justice organizers."

California Democrats are pushing to make ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement statewide. Their drafted curriculum defines ethnic studies as the "experiences of people of color in the United States" and the "forms of oppression" they've endured.

The California course urges students to become "agents of change" and mandates that all students complete an "engagement/action project." Astoundingly, the course guide suggests only one project to meet this requirement: promoting "voting rights for undocumented immigrant residents" in local elections.

The curriculum tars white students — by virtue of their whiteness — as oppressors. The course outline calls for "the privilege walk," an exercise to teach white students about privileges they take for granted. "Whiteness," defined as "more than a racial identity marker," apparently "separates those that are privileged from those that are not." White kids will have to endure this harassment to graduate.

Meanwhile, the course encourages minorities to think of themselves as oppressed. No mention of success stories like Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas. No explanation for why millions around the globe are struggling to get into the U.S., even scaling walls and wading rivers, to make this country their home.

American capitalism is demonized as a system in which "people of color are disproportionately exploited." Never mind that capitalism has lifted billions of people of color out of poverty worldwide.

Educators could point to Hispanic American and African American stars such as billionaire real estate developer Jorge Pérez or former Citigroup CEO and Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons as role models for minority students. Instead, the curriculum is a one-sided Marxist indoctrination to make students hate America. To what end? To brainwash the next generation of voters into becoming leftist Democrats.

California's curriculum, drafted by teachers and university professors, nearly slipped through without public scrutiny — till Jews in the state legislature noticed the curriculum condemned Islamophobia but not anti-Semitism.

Parents and the public, who foot the bill for public schools, need to wake up and demand more control over what's being taught. Don't leave curriculum reform to self-proclaimed professionals. The National Education Association, the largest teachers union, endorses reparations for slavery, Black Lives Matter and other divisive concepts. If parents want their children to learn the basics, without left-wing brainwashing, they need to win seats on local and statewide school boards.

The push for ethnic studies is a tidal wave, from Oregon to Indiana to individual school districts like Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Here in New York City, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza would have us believe that R — for racism — is a more important lesson than the 3 R's, reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. He's wrong.

Teaching kids they're victims won't help them pass the Regents or succeed in life. Instead, teach them about the many Hispanic Americans and black Americans who have made it to the top.

The current struggle, in New York and California and elsewhere, isn't new. In the 1930s and '40s, activists critical of capitalism pinned their hopes for social transformation on changing the social studies curriculum and, with it, the next generation of voters. The left has been trying ever since.

Today, all Americans — parents and nonparents alike — who share the vision of opportunity, common values and colorblind justice need to recognize what's happening and stop it.

Our future hinges not just on who's elected president but on who's elected to school boards. The leftist push for ethnic studies — more accurately termed "oppression studies" — poses a serious threat to the America we hold dear.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York State.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

]]>Betsy@cfif.org (Betsy McCaughey)EducationWed, 21 Aug 2019 05:11:22 +0000What We Need to Know From the Horowitz Reporthttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4635-what-we-need-to-know-from-the-horowitz-report
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4635-what-we-need-to-know-from-the-horowitz-reportThere will be much to learn in Inspector General Michael Horowitz's upcoming report on the Trump-Russia investigation, but most of it will likely boil down to just two questions: One, how much did the Obama Justice Department spy on the Trump campaign? And two, was it justified?

Many Democrats would immediately protest the word "spying." But the public already knows the FBI secured a warrant to wiretap low-level Trump adviser Carter Page a few months after Page left the campaign. The public also knows the FBI used informant Stefan Halper to gather information on other Trump campaign figures. And the public knows the FBI sent an undercover agent who went by the alias "Azra Turk" to London to tease information out of another low-level Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos.

Was that all? Was there more? Horowitz should give definitive answers.

And what did the spying involve? In such intelligence work, wiretaps are recorded; transcripts are made. The same can be true for person-to-person conversations between FBI informants and Trump campaign figures. In May, Trey Gowdy, the former Republican congressman who read deeply into Trump-Russia materials when he was in the House, strongly implied that the FBI had transcripts of informant communications.

"If the bureau is going to send an informant in, the informant is going to be wired," Gowdy told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo. "And if the bureau is monitoring telephone calls, there's going to be a transcript of that.

"Where are the transcripts, if any exist," Gowdy continued, "between the informants and the telephone calls to George Papadopoulos?"

The "if any exist" was Gowdy's way of casting his statements as a hypothetical, but there was no doubt he was speaking from the knowledge he gained as a congressional investigator.

And then the biggest questions: If there was evidence gained from the wiretapping and informing, what was it? Was it valuable? What did it tell the FBI about Russia and the Trump campaign? And did it prove that the Justice Department was right all along to spy on the campaign — that the spying was, in the words of Attorney General Bill Barr, "adequately predicated"?

Here is why Republicans are skeptical. Special counsel Robert Mueller had access to the results of the FBI's spying, and Mueller could not establish that there was any conspiracy or coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. After a two-year investigation with full law enforcement powers, Mueller never alleged that any American took part in any such conspiracy or coordination.

So Republicans know the end result of the investigation, but they don't know how it began. Yes, they know the official story of the start of what the FBI called Crossfire Hurricane — that it began with a foreign intelligence service (Australia) telling U.S. officials that Papadopoulos appeared to have foreknowledge of a Russian plan to release damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But they don't think it's the whole story.

That's where Horowitz comes in.

There's one big potential problem that people on Capitol Hill are talking about, and that is the issue of classified information. Everyone expects a significant amount of Horowitz's report to be classified. How much, no one is quite sure. But the fact is, the report was done to tell the American people what the nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies did during the 2016 election. Issuing a report with page after page blacked out would not be a good way to do that. But no one will know the extent of the classification issue until Horowitz is ready to go public.

And even if it were entirely declassified, Horowitz will not tell the whole story of spying and the 2016 election. Horowitz is the inspector general of the Justice Department and does not have the authority to investigate outside the department. For example, he cannot probe the actions of the Central Intelligence Agency and its then-director, John Brennan, during the period in question.

That will be the role of another investigator, John Durham, the U.S. attorney appointed by Barr to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. Durham is working with the support of top Republicans on Capitol Hill, like Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who recently said, "I really am very curious about the role that the CIA played here."

But first, the Horowitz report. It will be an important step in answering the questions of how much spying took place and whether it was justified. It's long past time Americans learned what happened.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. COPYRIGHT 2019 BYRON YORK

Those donors were everyday, ordinary citizens doing nothing more than exercising their legal rights to participate in America’s electoral process. Yet for that they were intentionally targeted and exposed by this vindictive, petty, power-abusive man.

Unfortunately, Representative Castro’s dangerous shenanigan was enabled by federal law, which compels disclosure of the names, addresses and employment data of anyone who donates just $200 to candidates for public office. In some states, that minimum donation limit is even lower.

What this latest episode reconfirms is the need to end this unconstitutional abomination once and for all, and enact legislation protecting donor privacy.

The First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Accordingly, the Bill of Rights explicitly protects our fundamental freedoms of speech, press, assembly and petition of government. Collectively, they make a functioning democratic republic possible.

Conversely, you know what the Constitution does not protect?

Other people’s vague, voyeuristic desire to dissect which candidates or political causes you support, or expose that information for your neighbors, your boss, your employees, your coworkers, your friends, your enemies or all the world to see.

Indeed, as the United States Supreme Court affirmed in NAACP v. Alabama (1958), the practice of exposing such information has the effect of chilling the First Amendment’s core freedoms:

Effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association, as this Court has more than once recognized by remarking upon the close nexus between the freedoms of speech and assembly. It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the “liberty” assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech… This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one’s associations…

In that case, the Court held that the state of Alabama could not compel the NAACP to surrender its membership lists, due to the obvious chilling effect that it would have on their First Amendment freedoms.

The Court rightly drew a straight-line connection between privacy of one’s associations and donations and the ability to exercise one’s First Amendment freedoms:

[R]evelation of the identity of its rank-and-file members has exposed these members to economic reprisal, loss of employment, threat of physical coercion, and other manifestations of public hostility. Under these circumstances, we think it apparent that compelled disclosure of petitioner’s Alabama membership is likely to affect adversely the ability of petitioner and its members to pursue their collective effort to foster beliefs which they admittedly have the right to advocate, in that it may induce members to withdraw from the Association and dissuade others from joining it because of fear of exposure of their beliefs shown through their associations and of the consequences of this exposure.

That logic applies with even greater force today, given the ability to instantly identify, locate and stalk people whose political views one finds disagreeable.

Indeed, in the aftermath of his stunt, Representative Castro brazenly admitted that such consequences were precisely his aim in doxxing the Trump donors. Subjecting them to the “public hostility” referenced above by the Supreme Court was what he sought.

In our upside-down contemporary political climate, too many people agree with Representative Castro. They elevate the desire to know which Americans contribute to which candidates and causes over the actual First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly and political association. Any society that elevates the former necessarily degrades the latter.

But your freedoms of speech and political association are fundamental and explicitly enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The dubious desire to expose people’s private donations to political candidates or causes, in contrast, is not.

It’s time that federal law reflected that simple reality.

]]>tlee@cfif.org (Timothy H. Lee)Campaign FinanceThu, 15 Aug 2019 13:14:42 +0000A Bad Deal, 80 Years Agohttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/45-foreign-policy/4628-a-bad-deal-80-years-ago
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/45-foreign-policy/4628-a-bad-deal-80-years-agoSome 80 years ago, on Aug. 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, formally known as the "Treaty of non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

The world was shocked — and terrified — by the agreement. Western democracies of the 1930s had counted on the huge resources of Communist Russia, and its hostility to the Nazis, to serve as a brake on Adolf Hitler's Western ambitions. Great Britain and the other Western European democracies had assumed that the Nazis would never invade them as long as a hostile Soviet Union threatened the German rear.

The incompatibility between communism and Nazism was considered by all to be existential — and permanent. That mutual hatred explained why dictators Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin both despised and feared each other.

Yet all at once, such illusions vanished with signing of the pact. Just seven days later, on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. World War II had begun.

After quickly absorbing most of Eastern Europe by either coercion or alliance, Hitler was convinced that he now had a safe rear. So he turned west in spring 1940 to overrun Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and the Netherlands.

Hitler accomplished all that relatively easily, failing only to conquer Great Britain with an exhaustive bombing campaigning.

During all these Nazi conquests, a compliant Stalin shipped huge supplies of food and fuel for the German war effort against the West. Stalin cynically had hoped that Germany and the Western democracies would wear themselves out in a wasting war — similar to the four horrific years in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I.

Communism then easily would spread to the Atlantic amid the ruins of European capitalism. Unlike Czarist Russia in 1914, this time around the Soviets wanted to stay out of a German war. Instead, Stalin rearmed during the non-aggression pact with Hitler.

Stalin, of course, had no idea he had created a Nazi monster that would quickly devour all of Continental Europe — and turn to its rear to eye a now-isolated Soviet Union. Much less did Stalin realize that the battle-hardened German war machine would soon overrun his country in a surprise attack beginning on June 22, 1941, a little less than two years after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

The non-aggression pact in a way had also ensured that a European war would soon turn into a global massacre that left roughly 65 million dead. At the time of deal, imperial Japan was fighting the Soviet Union on the Manchurian-Mongolian border. The Japanese were de facto allies of Nazi Germany. They had assumed that Stalin's fear of an aggressive Germany meant the Soviet Union would have to worry about a two-front war against both Germany and Japan.

But now, the surprise agreement stunned the Japanese, who saw it as a German betrayal. It left them alone against the superior forces of Russia's eastern armies.

Japan quickly withdrew from its losing Russian war. In time it signed its own non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, in April 1941 — ironically, just months before Hitler's planned Operation Barbarossa, the massive invasion of Russia.

Japan correctly concluded by the betrayal that Hitler's Germany could not be trusted and deserved tit-for-tat duplicity. So Japan never joined Hitler's surprise invasion of Russia. Instead, the Japanese turned their attention to the Pacific and especially the vulnerable British and American bases at Singapore, Burma the Philippines — and Pearl Harbor.

In sum, the August 1939 non-aggression pact ensured the German attack against Great Britain and Western Europe. It also convinced Hitler that Russia was vulnerable, gullible and appeasing, and could be overrun in weeks following an invasion.

Finally, the deal ended all Japanese ideas of fighting the Soviet Union on the ground from the East in partnership with Nazi Germany invading from the West. Instead, Japan turned toward the vulnerable British and American eastern forces.

In sophisticated times, we sometimes forget that time-honored concepts like the balance of power and military deterrence — not good intentions and international peace organizations — alone keep the peace. When the pact destroyed fragile alliances and encouraged German adventurism, war was certain.

The final ironies? The Soviet double-cross of the Western democracies eventually ended up almost destroying Russia, which bore the brunt of an empowered Germany.

The redirection of Japanese war strategy to target America finally brought the United States into World War II, which ensured the destruction of Japan and Germany.

Add this all up, and in some sense World War II really started on Aug. 23, 1939, 80 years ago this summer.

The biggest cancer killer isn't smoking or a chemical in the environment or even an inherited gene. It's the failure to screen patients at high risk of the disease. Curing cancer is about detecting it early, while it's still treatable.

Blame a small, unelected national board that doesn't include a single specialist who actually treats cancer patients. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, this board has the power to dictate the cancer tests insurance must cover and to influence your doctor.

This board, with the misleading name U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, isn't preventing cancer deaths. It's doing the opposite, by discouraging screening.

President Donald Trump promises that if reelected, he's going to make huge progress against cancer. His first step should be to make sure oncologists, radiologists and surgeons who treat cancer patients are added to the task force, which is under the Department of Health and Human Services. Cancer patients and their doctors deserve experts in their disease calling the shots.

Last week, the task force recommended against screening for pancreatic cancer, the kind that killed tenor Luciano Pavarotti and astronaut Sally Ride. Jeopardy host Alex Trebek is battling it right now, and 57,000 Americans are diagnosed with it each year. The task force gave pancreatic cancer screening its worst rating, a D, meaning don't do it. That's OK for the general population, but the task force failed to expressly recommend screening for people with a family history of pancreatic cancer. That's a deadly mistake.

Similarly, the task force has waffled over lung cancer screening, leading to tens of thousands of needless deaths a year.

Dr. Diane Simeone, director of the Pancreatic Cancer Center at NYU's Perlmutter Cancer Center, explains the task force should have recommended screening for people at high risk. Who are they? Patients with a family history of pancreatic cancer or a blood test indicating inherited risk. Screening means getting an annual MRI or endoscopic ultrasound of the pancreas. "If you screen someone and find something, the odds that you can do surgery are 80 to 90 percent."

The task force claims these surgeries are dangerous. But Simeone suggests the task force's data is obsolete, some of it going back as far as 2003. "It's now 2019," and the mortality rate at "highly experienced" medical centers for these procedures is less than 1%.

On Monday, scientists from Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center in Boston announced their discovery of an additional inherited gene mutation causing pancreatic cancer. It occurs in the RABL3 gene, and people carrying it should be screened. "Catching pancreatic cancer through screening of high-risk individuals" will make it more treatable, the scientists explain.

Take note, Mr. President.

As for lung cancer, in 2011, the National Lung Cancer Screening Trial made a splash with an announcement that "screening with the use of low-dose CT (computed tomography) reduces mortality from lung cancer" by double digits. Despite this compelling evidence, the task force equivocated, recommending screening for current and former smokers only if they first undergo counseling with their physician about possible false positives and overtreatment.

Requiring counseling has been the kiss of death for screening because too few family doctors know the data and can afford the time.

Only 4% of people at high risk for lung cancer get screened. Dr. Brendon Stiles, a thoracic surgeon at Weill Cornell, calls that "unconscionable." At least 80% of lung cancer detected with a CT scan is curable, compared with the current 19% overall lung cancer survival rate.

Dr. Claudia Henschke, a pioneer in CT scanning and director of the Lung Cancer Screening Program at Mount Sinai hospital, briefed Congress on July 23, saying, "Screening can find lung cancers when they are still highly curable."

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York State.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

]]>Betsy@cfif.org (Betsy McCaughey)Health CareWed, 14 Aug 2019 14:26:21 +0000Why Is the Presidential Field So Old?http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4626-why-is-the-presidential-field-so-old
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4626-why-is-the-presidential-field-so-oldHere are the ages that the top presidential candidates will be on Inauguration Day, 2021: Bernie Sanders, 79; Joe Biden, 78; Donald Trump, 74; and Elizabeth Warren, 71.

If Sanders were elected and served two terms, he would be in office until age 87. If Biden did the same, he would serve until 86. If President Trump were re-elected, he would serve until 78. If Warren served two terms, she would be 79.

There has never been a moment in American history in which so many of the top contenders for the presidency have been so old. There has never even been a time when two candidates over 70 ran against each other in a general election.

Before President Trump, there have been only two presidents who turned 70 in office: Ronald Reagan, who took office at 69 and left at 77, and Dwight Eisenhower, who took office at 62 and left three months after turning 70.

Now, if Sanders or Biden were elected, the president would turn 80 early in his first term. A second term would leave them heading toward 90.

That is totally uncharted territory in American politics.

Clearly, with Trump and the top three in the Democratic race all over 70, voters have decided that 70 is not a disqualifying age. But is 80? That is the question for Biden and Sanders.

That is not to say that an 80-year-old president will suffer from dementia, although that would certainly be more of a risk than with a 60-year-old president. It is not to say that an 80-year-old president will suffer physical decline that will make performing the world's most demanding job more difficult, although that, too, would certainly be more of a risk than with a 60-year-old president.

It is to say that there is a reasonable likelihood the president's age will be an issue throughout his or her time in office.

Reagan's second term, which began when he was 73, was filled with open discussion that he was losing it, that he was slowing down, that he was becoming senile.

The talk was quite common in 1987, with the release of the Tower Commission report on the Iran-Contra affair. The report portrayed Reagan as aging and disengaged. "The issue of memory loss and age has been raised by observers of President Reagan and his role in the Iran-Contra affair," The Washington Post wrote in March 1987. A joke, playing on the old Watergate saying, emerged: "What did the president forget and when did he forget it?"

Edmund Morris, author of the idiosyncratic Reagan biography "Dutch," observed Reagan closely during the second term. In 2011, Morris wrote that he never saw any signs of dementia in Reagan during those years. But:

"Old age I saw; extreme fatigue, often; diplomatic occasions when his genius for telling the right joke at the right time deserted him; important meetings during which he read from cue cards like an obedient schoolboy. During one unhappy period, when the Iran-Contra scandal coincided with prostate problems, the president was so withdrawn and confused that papers were surreptitiously drawn up by staffers concerned that he might have to be declared 'disoriented' and disabled under the 25th Amendment."

Of course Reagan, who seven years later would announce he had Alzheimer's, knew about the talk, and characteristically handled it with humor. "I've hit the point where I can recognize the three signs of the onset of senility," he said in 1988. "The first sign is loss of memory, and I can't remember the other two."

Back then, Reagan's gaffes and misstatements often led to discussions of his age. Much of that discussing came from Democratic-leaning commentators, while Republicans worried quietly.

Now, there is growing attention to Biden's gaffes and misstatements. Even though he was known as a "gaffe machine" throughout his 44 years in the Senate and the vice presidency, today, Biden's errors are discussed in the context of his age.

Just in the last few days, Biden recalled that he was vice president when the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting occurred, when in fact it was the Sandy Hook shooting. On another occasion, he said, "We choose truth over facts." On yet another, he said the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings occurred in Houston and Michigan.

It was nothing terribly serious; anyone can misspeak. But there will be more — many more, if Biden's past is any guide. And they will lead to talk about his age.

But the age issue in 2020 is about more than just gaffes. It is a substantial question for the nation's voters. Any of the top contenders might well experience age-related problems in office, and voters need to consider that before electing them.

The race is in its early stages. It will inevitably become more intense next year. When that time comes, age will be an issue.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. COPYRIGHT 2019 BYRON YORK

]]>byron.york@cfif.org (Byron York)State of AffairsWed, 14 Aug 2019 14:16:18 +0000Joaquin Castro's 'Doxing' of Voters Is Un-American http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4621-joaquin-castros-doxing-of-voters-is-un-american-
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4621-joaquin-castros-doxing-of-voters-is-un-american-This week, Democratic Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, who chairs the presidential campaign of his twin brother, Julian, tweeted the names and employers of more than 40 San Antonians who maxed out their donations to President Donald Trump's reelection campaign.

Mind you, the federal maximum is $2,800 per individual, so we're not talking about nefarious millionaires and billionaires or political activists or public figures. The congressman curated a list of retirees and business owners whose only sin was displeasing Castro.

The congressman claims he was targeting voters who "are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as 'invaders.'" First of all, if Castro disagrees with his fellow Texans on whether illegal immigrants are "invaders," then he is free to try to change their minds. Six of the people he targeted turned out to have donated to him, as well. Instead he decided to sic every unhinged progressive activist in Texas on these businesses, which, one imagines, employ and serve plenty of people in his community that don't even care about politics.

Then again, Castro has no clue if those he singled out support Trump's rhetoric on immigration or even if they support his position on the borders. Maybe some of his victims maxed out because they're happy with the unemployment rate or like the GOP's tax policy. Or maybe they see the election as a binary choice and prefer a demagogic president to a leftist congressman who feels comfortable "doxing" his own constituents. Who knows?

Not that it really matters, of course. I may believe that Castro is a lightweight authoritarian, but it still doesn't mean I should post his family's business addresses on Twitter. Not even if it's in the public record.

Democrats like Castro have adopted a political zealotry that rationalizes virtually any tactic they deem necessary to fight Trump. Pretending every Republican is abetting Nazism gives partisans like Castro the space to rationalize maximalist, illiberal positions. This, I guess, now includes intimidation. Because the purpose of tweeting those names wasn't merely to bully those who have already donated to Trump's reelection but also to warn anyone in his district thinking about contributing to consider potential retaliatory public attacks on their businesses (or worse).

Leftist groups have become quite adept at destroying the lives of those who back causes they dislike. Most notably there is the case of former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, who had the audacity to dissent from prevailing opinions in California. He's not alone. While Eich can weather such an event, I wonder what the Texans on Castro's list will do if their businesses go under, all for the sin of expressing a political opinion.

It is true, as some readers will no doubt point out, that anyone could look up these names, as they are a matter of public record. That's a problem, indeed. For one thing, campaign finance laws are meant to keep politicians honest, not to be used as "enemies" lists by politicians. Castro, who has a far bigger megaphone than most, makes a strong case for expanding anonymity in political speech.

The obsession with transparency in campaign money is a byproduct of an obsession with controlling speech. The idea that citizens should be expected to report to the IRS before expressing their political opinions has been normalized over the years, but it's un-American and undermines free expression.

"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority," the 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission famously noted, because it "exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation ... at the hand of an intolerant society."

The intolerant force in this case is Castro, but there will be more to come.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of the book "First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History With the Gun."
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

]]>mark.donahoohatchell+DavidHarsanyi@gmail.com (David Harsanyi)State of AffairsFri, 09 Aug 2019 05:08:20 +0000The Fed Has No Business Entering the Real-Time Payment Markethttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/43-taxes-and-economy/4620-the-fed-has-no-business-entering-the-real-time-payment-market
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/43-taxes-and-economy/4620-the-fed-has-no-business-entering-the-real-time-payment-marketWhen most Americans think of the Federal Reserve, to the extent that they do at all, they naturally associate it with its primary role of stabilizing our currency through regulation of the nation’s money supply.

And even on that task, the Fed’s performance record is debatable, to put it charitably.

Given its spotty record in accomplishing its primary job, it would strike most Americans as bizarre to learn that the Fed might consider expanding its role in American life by entering the realm of real-time payment networks between people and financial institutions, a job the private sector already manages just fine.

Yet believe it or not, that’s precisely what it’s considering.

It amounts to yet another counterproductive government “fix” for something that isn’t broken, in addition to the fact that the idea contravenes federal statute. Congress should therefore intervene if the Fed doesn’t reconsider quickly.

To provide some background, the field of instant electronic fund transfers is one already handled by the Clearing House Payment Co., which is a private, U.S.-based financial utility operated by over twenty banks, including such familiar names as Bank of America, BB&T and PNC Financial Services. Broadly stated, it exists to provide speedier financial transactions between customers and financial institutions. The Clearing House system started in November 2017, and today covers approximately half of all U.S. accounts. It aims to possess a universal real-time payment system by next year, although the Fed’s sudden desire to intrude naturally jeopardizes that task.

If you’re wondering why the Fed should insert itself into that functioning field, join the crowd.

Nevertheless, in October of last year the Fed floated a proposal to enter the field of instant electronic fund transfers, which would compete with the Clearing House system, and solicited public comment. Then this week, Fed Governor Lael Brainard announced its decision to go ahead with the scheme.

As an initial matter, as noted above, the idea violates federal law. Under the Monetary Control Act of 1980, the Fed may only enter the field to offer services “that other providers alone cannot be expected to provide with reasonable effectiveness, scope, and equity.” That obviously isn’t the case, so the proposal falls flat as a legal matter.

Even assuming that the proposal complied with federal law, however, when was the last time that a federal bureaucracy improved a product or service that it began providing?

On that question, Gallup reported in its annual measure earlier this year that trust in government has reached an all-time low. “The public’s trust in government’s handling of both domestic and international issues,” Gallup announced, “has been severely breached, reaching record lows in the latest polling.”

So when the federal government isn’t trusted to fulfill even its existing tasks, what reasonable person would expect it to enter and improve a field in which the private sector performs perfectly well?

First, private companies would automatically suffer a disadvantage when forced to compete against a government entity that can tip the scales in its own favor and leverage the power of the state in its favor, as economist Stephen Moore observes:

[N]o private company wants to compete with the Federal Reserve. No private firm can safely charge as low a price as the Fed or absorb high costs. The Fed has an obvious advantage in any venturing into activities now conducted by private lenders: It has effectively the lowest borrowing costs in the world because the full faith and credit of the U.S. government stands behind it. The Fed can’t go bankrupt and by its enormous size and stature is the behemoth in the banking universe.

Perhaps even worse, as all too many Americans have become aware in recent years, a government entity entering this field creates an enormous opportunity for politicized misbehavior by rogue bureaucrats or vindictive elected officials.

To cite a familiar example, recall “Operation Choke Point,” the 2013 Obama Justice Department initiative that pressured banks conducting business with firearms dealers, payday lenders or other perfectly legal businesses that the Obama Administration happened to disfavor. Imagine the potential ways in which politicized government officials could use a new Federal Reserve real-time payments system to similarly help or hinder targeted businesses, and play favorites in the marketplace based on their political leanings.

Meanwhile, the Fed acknowledges that its proposed competing system wouldn’t even become operational until 2023 or 2024. Until that time, the looming prospect of federal entry into this sphere would disrupt the functioning private market.

Perhaps most ironically, current Federal Reserve officials complain about political leaders and pundits meddling in their affairs. But by affirmatively seeking to enter an existing marketplace far beyond its core task of monetary policy, the Fed betrays an inability to practice what it preaches.

If they don’t correct course, Congress and the White House should correct it for them.

]]>tlee@cfif.org (Timothy H. Lee)Taxes & EconomyThu, 08 Aug 2019 13:37:34 +0000Will 2020 Be a Repeat of 2004 for Democrats?http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4618-will-2020-be-a-repeat-of-2004-for-democrats
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4618-will-2020-be-a-repeat-of-2004-for-democratsDemocrats by 2004 had become obsessed with defeating incumbent President George W. Bush.

Four years earlier, in the 2000 election, Bush had won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote. Democrats were still furious that Bush supposedly had been "selected" by the Supreme Court over the contested vote tally in Florida rather than "elected" by the majority of voters.

By late 2003, Bush's popularity had dipped over the unpopular Iraq War, which a majority in both houses of Congress approved but had since disowned.

Bush was attacked nonstop as a Nazi, fascist and war criminal. "Bush lied, people died" was the new left-wing mantra.

Talk of Bush's impeachment was in the air. Democrats remembered that his father, George H.W. Bush, lost his re-election bid in 1992. They hoped the same fate awaited his son.

Neither presidential candidate Al Gore nor vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman from the defeated 2000 ticket wanted to run again in 2004. Sen. John Edwards was a charismatic newcomer candidate, but he was increasingly proving to be a smarmy empty suit.

Oddly, none of the Democrats wished to identify with the last successful liberal president, two-term Bill Clinton, or his policies. In 2000, Gore also ran away from the president under whom he had served as vice president — and lost.

Within that void, little-known Vermont Gov. Howard Dean announced early on that he was running. And for most of 2003, according to polls, Dean was the front-runner of the Democratic primary field.

Dean was running on an ever-harder-left agenda. His chief allure to primary voters was that he was the most venomous of the candidates in references to Bush, and he loudly claimed that he had always been against the Iraq War.

The rest of the Democratic field was full of even more radical fringe candidates, including Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

The so-called "centrists" — House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and Sen. Bob Graham — found no traction as the entire Democratic field went harder left.

As the first 2004 primaries loomed, Democratic donors, officeholders and blue-collar workers became concerned that Dean might be too far ahead to be stopped. They warned of a landslide loss similar to the one Democrats suffered in 1972, when the party had foolishly nominated the ultra-liberal George McGovern.

Few realist Democratic candidates for congressional seats wanted to run with Dean at the head of the ticket. By default, the worried Democratic establishment then rallied around late-entering Sen. John Kerry to stop Dean in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Kerry had been in the Senate for almost 20 years. He had done little as a senator and was a wooden and often sanctimonious insider. But he was considered a safe liberal option. Kerry certainly would not melt down or look and sound silly like the unpredictable loudmouth Dean.

The result was that the safe Kerry won the Democratic nomination, but the plodding candidate went on to lose to Bush in a close election.

Something similar is shaping up for the Democrats in 2020. The 20-candidate field is larger than it was in 2004 — and even weirder. Fifteen of the 20 are polling at under 5 percent.

Yet the left-wing favorites — Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — are all running on agendas that do not earn majority support among the general electorate.

Strangely, many of the top contenders are critical of once-revered former President Barack Obama and his policies. Obama is now seen as too tame compared with the several of the neo-socialist candidates.

In the initial debates, most of the chief Democratic contenders seemed resolute that no other candidate on the stage would sound more left-wing.

The de facto Democratic agenda for 2020 is shaping up to be open borders, race and gender identity politics, and free health care for undocumented immigrants. Many of the Democratic contenders support Medicare for all, repartitions for slavery, the Green New Deal, a wealth tax and much higher taxes overall.

Candidates talk of fundamentally "transforming," "recalibrating" and "restructuring" the United States into something far more socialistic.

And then there is 76-year-old Joe Biden, the longtime senator and former vice president.

Biden, like Kerry, is an old political warhorse. For now, he poses as the Democratic establishment's only safe bet.

Like Kerry, Biden has lots of flaws, is an erratic campaigner and is gaffe-prone. Yet Biden continues to poll as the front-runner, mostly because the majority of Democratic voters realize that none of the scary hard-left alternatives have any chance against the hated Donald Trump.

Fifteen years ago, the Democrats backed off from the hard left and took the safe route in nominating a boring and sedate party man — and came close to winning against a controversial incumbent president.

This time around, Democrats may have no choice but to try the 2004 formula again — even if it ends with the same close but ultimately losing result.

]]>mark.donahoohatchell+vdhanson@gmail.com (Victor Davis Hanson)State of AffairsThu, 08 Aug 2019 05:32:11 +0000Democrats to Seniors: Drop Deadhttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/56-health-care/4617-democrats-to-seniors-drop-dead
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/56-health-care/4617-democrats-to-seniors-drop-deadIf you're already on Medicare or counting on it when you retire, you're in for a shock. Medicare Part A — the fund that pays hospital and nursing home bills — is running out of money. A mere seven years from now, it will no longer have enough funds to pay your providers' bills in full. Medicare trustees sounded the alarm in June, urging Washington lawmakers to act "as soon as possible" to protect people "already dependent" on the program.

Good advice, but don't expect most politicians to take it. The Democrats running for president are in fantasyland, proposing to expand Medicare to millions of younger people, or even to the entire population through "Medicare for All" — never mind Medicare's insolvency. That's like a family that can't pay its mortgage going shopping for a mega-mansion.

Amazingly, in four national debates so far, not one moderator has asked the presidential wannabes how they would secure Medicare's finances and keep the promise the nation has made to seniors. As if 65-and-overs don't count.

In contrast, President Donald Trump is taking steps to avert Medicare's meltdown. Last week, he stressed his commitment to "securing and improving" Medicare. His budget slows the growth in Medicare spending by trimming what hospitals and other institutions are paid. Another change will allow knee replacements to be performed at ambulatory surgery centers, which are lower-cost. The idea is to stretch the money in the Medicare insurance fund and make it last longer.

Predictably, Trump's political opponents are trying to torpedo his efforts. A new digital ad by the Democratic-leaning group Priorities USA in battleground states like Michigan claims Trump is cutting Medicare "just to pay for tax cuts for billionaires." It's a blatant lie, and even the left-leaning Washington Post and PolitiFact admit that.

Medicare Part A is funded through a payroll tax paid by employers and employees. As soon as the tax revenue is collected, it's spent. Today's workers and employers fund health care for today's seniors. The trouble is, there are too many boomers retiring, compared with the number of workers paying the tab.

Economists have been warning for years about this impending shortfall. Fixing it is another matter. During the 2012 presidential election, when Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan proposed Medicare reform, Democrats ran a TV ad depicting Ryan gruesomely rolling a wheelchair-bound granny off a cliff. The bitter lesson was demagoguery works. Don't level with voters about the problem. Just make big, impossible promises.

That was eight years ago. Every year since, Medicare trustees have warned about the program's slow slide into default. But Washington's cowardly politicians stayed mum.

Shoring up the program will require curbing benefit costs, hiking the payroll tax or inching up the eligibility age to slow enrollment growth.

The longer politicians dither, the fewer options remain available. A decade ago, the most painless approach was to raise the eligibility age of 65 by a month each year so that 12 years later the eligibility age would be 66. This gradual approach would have given future retirees plenty of advance notice.

Increasing payroll taxes is a nonstarter; it threatens to drag down the economy and clobber low-income workers disproportionately.

Currently, Trump is using his only option. He's reducing benefit costs by cutting what hospitals and other providers are paid. Any other remedy would require Congress' cooperation, which is unlikely.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and other backers of Medicare for All are making big promises with no way to pay. Sanders has proposed several tax hikes, but altogether, they wouldn't foot the bill for even half the estimated cost of his program. It's make-believe math.

There's nothing make-believe about Medicare Part A's impending insolvency. Some 61 million seniors depend on Medicare and have no other means of paying their hospital bills. Millions more will become dependent on Medicare in the next six years.

For White House contenders to ignore this crisis, which will have to be solved during the next presidential term, is a slap in the face to seniors and middle-aged Americans.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York State.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

]]>Betsy@cfif.org (Betsy McCaughey)Health CareWed, 07 Aug 2019 14:08:06 +0000Compared With the Democrats, Donald Trump Is a Moderatehttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4616-compared-with-the-democrats-donald-trump-is-a-moderate
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4616-compared-with-the-democrats-donald-trump-is-a-moderateOnce you strip away all the hysteria and madness surrounding Donald Trump's presidency, you're left with a policy agenda of a populist, big-government Republican. Whether or not you have a moral or personal case against Trump himself, the president's stated policy positions fall well within the contours of traditional right-left politics.

Can the same be said of Democrats? I'm sorry, but across-the-board tax cuts, notwithstanding the panic-stricken reaction we saw, aren't particularly radical. Every Republican president going back to Warren Harding has passed some kind of rate reduction. Nor is Trump's stated position on constrained foreign entanglement, which is popular with large factions of both parties. Trump's pro-Israel posture is a long-standing GOP position. And before President Barack Obama, it enjoyed bipartisan consensus.

Higher tariffs, which many of us believe are destructive and counterproductive, have been part of our economic debate forever. We shouldn't forget, either, that while reflexive anti-Trumpism may have transformed a number of Democrats into temporary free marketers, most progressives share Trump's protectionist instincts. Hillary Clinton, for instance, was compelled to change her long-standing position on both NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership during 2016 campaign to appeal to her left flank. Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren's new trade proposal not only makes Trump look like Milton Friedman, it allows environmental groups and unions to dictate terms.

Debt? Sadly, no one cares.

At CNN's primary debate in Detroit, presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg cautioned that no matter which policies Democrats embrace, Republicans will still call them "crazy socialists." Until recently, there was no need for any qualifier, because Democrats feigned outrage at the mere mention of socialism. But now that Democrats are openly arguing for collectivist policies – one of their leading candidates is, in fact, a socialist who could easily have been the party's nominee for the presidency in 2016 –sane socialism is, apparently, OK.

And let's face it, leading candidates such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders oppose free enterprise as anything but a funding mechanism for their state-run social engineering projects. They see capitalism as an evolutionary stage, if you will. At the debates, both argued for the complete mobilization of society to achieve their policy goals.

Warren argued that insurance companies do not have the God-given right to "suck all the money out of health care." Yet, she believes government has a God-given right to nationalize entire industries, dictate what Americans can buy and sell, and levy confiscatory taxes. I'm not sure if this qualifies as "crazy socialism," but it's certainly un-American and dictatorial.

Democrats want to get rid of your private health insurance. Every single one of them. They aspire to do it either immediately, through "Medicare for All," or incrementally, by creating a "public option" that destroys your private plan by forcing it to "compete" against an institution that can print money.

Perhaps this kind of economic populism will give socialists the traction to win an election. And maybe this kind of statism is destined to become the prevailing ideology of both parties. But stripping away the profit motive is why government-run enterprises are wasteful and bloated. Without profit, there is no incentive to improve efficiency or service or technology, or anything else. So mock Trump all you like for his word salads or lack of policy knowledge, but he certainly understands this basic idea.

He's not alone. The socialists spent most of their time swatting away the concerns of low-polling candidates last night. At one point, Sanders – whose speechwriter once celebrated the "economic miracle" of Venezuela – was rattling off some fantastical aspects of socialized medicine, and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio retorted, "But you don't know that, you don't know that, Bernie." To which Sanders yelled, "I do know it. I wrote the damn bill."

This vacuous rejoinder excited the crowd, but you almost certainly have to be a socialist to believe the state can control all costs, services, technological advances and human interactions of a $3 trillion industry simply because you wrote it down in a bill.

"The Green New Deal, making sure every American is guaranteed a government job if they want – that is a disaster at the ballot box. You might as well FedEx the election to Donald Trump," John Hickenlooper, another member of the logical coalition, warned.

Warren countered Hickenlooper was recycling Republican Party talking points. She was wrong. At its center, the Green New Deal calls for elimination of all fossil fuel energy production in 20 years. The Green New Deal would also get rid of all nuclear power and 99% of cars, gut and retrofit every building in America, and offer every citizen a government-guaranteed "family-sustaining wage, family and medical leave, vacations, and a pension," "safe, affordable, adequate housing," and "economic security" for all who are "unable or unwilling" to work.

If that's not crazy socialism, what is?

Democrats are sure to walk back some of this primary bait. But judging from the primary debates, Trump will be the voice of policy moderation.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of the book "First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History With the Gun."
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

]]>mark.donahoohatchell+DavidHarsanyi@gmail.com (David Harsanyi)State of AffairsFri, 02 Aug 2019 03:07:35 +0000Hypocrisy: Leftists’ Hallmarkhttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4611-hypocrisy-leftists-hallmark
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4611-hypocrisy-leftists-hallmarkIf canceling an airline flight could help save the world from a looming existential threat, wouldn’t you gladly do so?

Particularly if the very act of flying was part of the causal sequence creating that existential threat?

Seems like a no-brainer, right?

If you answered, “of course,” then you’re apparently not an anthropogenic (man-made) climate change alarmist.

That reality was driven home again this week, when Google convened a who’s who roster of entertainers, political figures and activists in a seaside Italian resort to discuss – wait for it – global warming. The guests, including such high priests and priestesses of virtue as Leonardo DiCaprio, Barack Obama, Sting, Elton John, Katy Perry and David Geffen, naturally arrived via private jets and enormous yachts, not hang glider. And naturally, their vast security entourages and assorted minions had to join them for the trip as well.

Hey, you’ve got to burn a few thousand tons of fossil fuels in order to show the world how serious you are about ending their use, right?

DiCaprio, who actually founded his own climate alarmist foundation, proclaimed in a speech just three years ago that, “Our planet cannot be saved unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground where they belong.” Revealing a spectacular lack of self-awareness and inability to recognize irony, he continued, “I have traveled all over the world for the past two years documenting how this crisis is changing the natural balance of our planet.”

Perhaps he was simply referring to gazing at his own exhaust fumes as he flew across oceans and continents.

Whatever the case, such people are perfectly happy to shut down entire sectors of our economy, and eliminate millions of jobs along with them, to signal their virtue. Just don’t hold them to their own standards or interrupt their privilege of jetting to Mediterranean resorts at whim. That hypocrisy is the hallmark of their fraudulent agenda.

Meanwhile, another hypocrites’ parade occurred this week in Detroit as the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates convened for two days of debate.

There was “authentic” Bernie Sanders, who angrily thunders that millionaires must pay their fair share in taxes, and maligning the Trump tax cuts that accelerated economic and job growth. But Sanders himself reached millionaire status, and owns several posh homes. And when he released his tax returns earlier this year, it was revealed that he filed according to the lower Trump rate, not the rate that he claims millionaires should pay.

When confronted with that discrepancy by Fox News anchor Bret Baier, who asked why he didn’t practice what he preached, Sanders had no answer. Instead, he literally scoffed, and awkwardly replied that he’s more interested in seeing Donald Trump’s tax returns.

Sanders also advocates a job-killing doubling of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. But lo and behold, apparently Sanders refused to pay his own campaign employees that same amount.

And then there’s Joe Biden. He now bristles at the unfairness of other candidates tagging him with accusations of racial insensitivity over positions he’s taken over nearly 50 years in public office, on issues ranging from school busing to crime legislation. But this is the same Joe Biden who grotesquely told a largely black audience while he was Vice President that Republicans “want to put y’all BACK in chains.”

This man who suggests that half the country seeks to repeal a 13th Amendment that is over 150 years old can hardly be heard to complain about the unfairness of critiquing policy positions that he actually and explicitly did advocate.

Like Sanders, Biden also fails to practice what he preaches when it comes to paying taxes on his own wealth. Specifically, Biden saved approximately $500,000 by channeling income earned via speeches and book sales through S-corporation status rather than claiming self-employment, which the Obama Administration attempted to prohibit.

Leftists’ hypocrisy is hardly confined to “socialism for thee, but not for me” economic issues or climate change, however. On 2nd Amendment issues, they seek to curtail or even eliminate the individual right to keep and bear arms. But do they forego armed protection for themselves? Please.

On issue after issue, rank hypocrisy characterizes almost every aspect of the leftist agenda.

They preach like socialists, but live like capitalists. That tells us everything we need to know about the validity of the ideas they seek to impose on everyone else.

]]>tlee@cfif.org (Timothy H. Lee)State of AffairsThu, 01 Aug 2019 14:19:01 +0000Menacing Invective Against Trump Creates Dangerous Climatehttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4609-menacing-invective-against-trump-creates-dangerous-climate
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4609-menacing-invective-against-trump-creates-dangerous-climateFormer vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden has bragged on two occasions that he would like to beat up President Donald Trump.

In March 2018, Biden huffed, "They asked me would I like to debate this gentleman, and I said no. I said, 'If we were in high school, I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him."

Biden's tough-guy braggadocio was apparently no slip. A year later, he doubled down on his physical threats.

"The idea that I'd be intimidated by Donald Trump? ... He's the bully that I've always stood up to. He's the bully that used to make fun when I was a kid that I stutter, and I'd smack him in the mouth."

Had former Vice President Dick Cheney ever dared to say something similar of President Obama, what would the media reaction have been?

Recently, Sen. Corey Booker (D-N.J.), another presidential candidate, took up where Biden left off:

"Trump is a guy who you understand he hurts you, and my testosterone sometimes makes me want to feel like punching him, which would be bad for this elderly, out-of-shape man that he is if I did that. This physically weak specimen."

One trait of the Democratic field of presidential candidates is always to sound further to the left than any of their primary rivals. Apparently, a similar habit is to see who can most effectively imagine beating up the president. For now, Booker seems to be in first place.

The current candidates are just channeling three years of sick showboating by Hollywood celebrities.

Actor Robert De Niro has repeatedly expressed a desire to physically assault trump. A month before Trump was elected, De Niro said of him, "I'd like to punch him in the face." Later, De Niro doubled down with a series of "F--- Trump" outbursts.

This is especially dangerous in the aftermath of progressive zealot and Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson's 2017 attempt to assassinate Republican congressmen at a practice for a charity baseball game. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot and nearly killed. Three other people were also shot and wounded.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), just hours after she was sworn in, said a rally that she had promised her young son that "we're going to impeach the motherf----r."

Donald Trump is a controversial president, no doubt. He replies to his critics with strong, often inflammatory invective.

Yet the continued litany of threats to physically assault or kill a president is lowering the bar of assassination, and it will haunt the country long after Trump is gone.

On the day Trump was inaugurated, the pop music star Madonna told a large crowd outside the White House that she had thought of blowing it up.

A few months later, comedian Kathy Griffin issued a video where she held up a bloody facsimile of a decapitated Trump head.

Since then, Hollywood and the entertainment industry have been in constant competition to imagine the most gruesome way of killing off Trump — stabbing, blowing up, burning, shooting, suffocating, decapitating or beating.

Celebrities such as Johnny Depp, Snoop Dogg, George Lopez, Moby, Rosie O'Donnell, Mickey Rourke and Larry Wilmore seem to relish the media attention as they discuss or demonstrate what they consider to be creative ways to kill the president.

It is hard to determine whether their tweets and outbursts are designed to restore sagging careers, are heartfelt expressions of pure hatred, or both.

We saw something similar to the current climate of threatened violence during the re-election campaign and second presidential term of George W. Bush.

A few columnists, documentary filmmakers and novelists went well beyond the boilerplate invective of calling Bush a fascist, racist, Nazi and war criminal, and imagined his assassination in a variety of ways.

But we are now well beyond even that rhetorical violence.

Trump and his critics often go at it relentlessly in interviews, in Twitter wars, and on television and radio. No insult seems too petty for Trump to ignore.

Yet progressives like Biden and Booker seem to think that by bragging of wanting to do violence to the president, they will rev up their base and win attention, as if physical violence is justified by Trump's unorthodox presidency.

Nonetheless, the current climate is becoming scary. Those who brag of wanting to violently attack the president should worry about where their boasts will finally lead if any of the thousands of James Hodgkinsons in America take such threats seriously and act upon them.

]]>mark.donahoohatchell+vdhanson@gmail.com (Victor Davis Hanson)State of AffairsWed, 31 Jul 2019 14:55:39 +0000The Truth About Kamalacarehttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/56-health-care/4608-the-truth-about-kamalacare
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/56-health-care/4608-the-truth-about-kamalacareArming herself for Wednesday night's Democratic primary debate, contender Kamala Harris unveiled her latest health care position paper. Harris has flip-flopped over whether she supports eliminating all private insurance in favor of a single-payer government-run health system. Her new plan tries to have it both ways. Don't be fooled.

Reacting to people's fears about having private health insurance they like ripped away, Harris is promising a 10-year transition period. Here's what you need to know.

If you get health insurance at work or buy your own plan, will you be able to keep it? No. Harris says insurance companies will be allowed "to offer a plan" in the government-run system but only if they follow the government's strict rules to skimp on what's spent on your care. "If they want to play by our rules, they can be in the system. If not, they have to get out," she says.

Harris' plan keeps the window dressing of private insurance but, in fact, rapidly transitions to Medicare payment rates and rules. In contrast, Joe Biden is promising Democratic voters he won't make any radical changes to the current health insurance system. "If you like your private insurance, you can keep it," he says.

Who has the most to lose under Kamalacare? Patients. Harris' plan will plunge hospitals into financial distress, exposing patients to dangerous shortages of nurses, medical supplies and waits for treatment. Hospitals will be forced to operate with less revenue and care for more patients.

Harris brags that "Medicare works" and misleadingly suggests that expanding it to everyone is the way to reduce health care costs. That's a shell game.

Right now, Medicare shortchanges hospitals, paying them less than 90 cents for every dollar of care for seniors. But hospitals accept the low payments because they can shift the unmet costs to younger patients who have private insurance that pays more. But under Kamalacare, even private insurers will be paying the stingy rates. There will be no cost shifting. Hospitals will have to skimp on nurses and crowd more beds into a room. Kenneth Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, warns that Medicare rates are "wholly inadequate."

An April 2019 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association warned that making Medicare payment rates universal, as Harris wants to do, would force many hospitals into bankruptcy and likely cause 850,000 layoffs. Fewer nurses on the floor means patients wait longer when they press the call button for help.

What about seniors? They'd be the biggest losers. Under Harris' scheme, health plans will pay doctors less. To keep their doors open, they'll have to see more patients per hour. Doctors will avoid seniors like the plague, because they take up more time.

The Medicare hospital trust fund is projected to run out of funds in 2026. If you're 55 and counting on Medicare to pay for your knee replacement in a decade, you should be insisting that the current system be shored up, not opened up to everyone.

Who's going to pay for Kamalacare? Harris has several answers. They're all double talk. She glibly promises to cut the profits for the two bogeymen, drug companies and insurance companies. Let's hope the debate moderators ask Harris how much money these two industries make. The answer is $23.4 billion profit for the health insurance industry and $133 billion profit for American drug companies. Even eliminating these profits entirely wouldn't pay for a minuscule 5 percent of Harris' plan.

Harris also promises a tax on Wall Street bond and stock sales. But that, she admits, would only produce $200 billion a year, less than one-tenth of the estimated $3.2 trillion-a-year tab for universal government-run health care.

The truth is Harris' plan, like Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" plan, will require mammoth, life-altering tax hikes on the middle class, because the half of the population that currently pays for its own health insurance would become dependent on the public system.

Harris is not leveling with the public about the human and financial costs of her radical insurance scheme.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York State.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

]]>Betsy@cfif.org (Betsy McCaughey)Health CareWed, 31 Jul 2019 14:35:51 +0000End Is Near for Much of Democratic Fieldhttp://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4607-end-is-near-for-much-of-democratic-field
http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/4607-end-is-near-for-much-of-democratic-fieldTwenty Democratic presidential candidates will debate Tuesday and Wednesday night. It will be the last time voters will see some of them on a debate stage.

The Democratic National Committee's rules for inclusion in early debates — the first from NBC in late June in Miami, and the second from CNN this week in Detroit — were quite generous. If Sen. Michael Bennet — currently polling at 0.2 percent in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls — got in both, then it's safe to say the rules were not terribly restrictive.

But that's over after Detroit. Party rules call for new qualification standards for candidates in the next debate, scheduled for September in Houston. Candidates will be required to meet a new polling standard and a new donations standard.

To make it onstage, candidates will have to "receive two percent or more support in at least four polls (which may be national polls, or polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and/or Nevada)," according to the DNC. The committee went on to list several specifications for the polls themselves to make sure the candidates can cite support in legitimate surveys.

Beyond that, the DNC says, candidates must show they have received donations from at least 130,000 unique donors, plus at least 400 unique donors in at least 20 states. Together, those rules will eliminate a lot of current Democratic candidates.

Right now in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, just seven candidates are polling at 2.0 percent or higher: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang and Beto O'Rourke. If they stay that way, they will be in the September debate.

A few of those might make it to September by hitting the 2.0 percent mark in an early-voting state. For example, Booker is currently at 2.5 percent in the RealClearPolitics average of Iowa polls. So he, and perhaps others, might make it in on that basis.

But even if a candidate can scratch his or her way to 2.0 percent, they must still meet the donations standard; the DNC is clear that candidates have to hit both marks to make it into the later debate.

The big field has left the first debates open to eccentricity. Marianne Williamson, a lecturer on spiritual growth and author of books with titles like "A Return to Love," "The Law of Divine Compensation" and "Enchanted Love," has added a touch of, well, something unusual to the debates. Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur whose main platform is a universal monthly income of $1,000 for every U.S. citizen over the age of 18, is another interesting voice. (Yang might make it to the next stage; he is currently at 2.0 percent in the RealClearPolitics average.)

Only one candidate has dropped out of the Democratic race so far — Rep. Eric Swalwell of California. He took part in the first debate, but remained at an unmeasurable level in the polls. "We have to be honest about our own candidacy's viability," Swalwell said in announcing his departure.

Soon other candidates will have to reach that same level of honesty. If they don't make the cut for the September debate, they'll be instantly robbed of their only opportunity to reach a nationwide audience, and they'll be just as instantly relegated to the category of also-ran.

Republicans had a big field — 17 candidates — in 2016. They, too, started dropping out early. Back then, the first GOP debate was held on Aug. 6, 2015, the second on Sept. 16, and the third on Oct. 28 — all months before the first primary or caucus votes.

Rick Perry dropped out between the first and second debates. Scott Walker dropped out a few days after the second debate. Bobby Jindal dropped out after the third, as did, later, Lindsey Graham and George Pataki.

Now, especially because they have an even bigger field than the GOP had in 2016, the time is coming for Democrats to start dropping out, too. It will certainly be a disappointment for those candidates who have to face the fact that they never caught fire. But it will be a good thing for voters. A smaller field will mean they get a better look at each candidate.

Primary contests are about narrowing the field. It's time that got started.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. COPYRIGHT 2019 BYRON YORK